Revival screenings are hardly a novelty in Berlin, where repertory culture has long thrived in the cracks between multiplexes. The city has always had a taste for cinematic returns. A late-night showing of Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders’ elegy to a divided Berlin, will reliably draw a multigenerational crowd who sit in near communion throughout the screening. It’s something close to a local ritual. Lately, however, these screenings feel less like nostalgic detours and more like the main event. More and more, films are appearing for limited runs, sometimes only for a few weeks before disappearing again.
This year promises a strong selection of restorations across the Kinos of Berlin. This month brings Wanda (1970), the singular debut of Barbara Loden, back on screen. Written, directed and performed by Loden, the film drops us into a fly-on-the-wall vision of working-class America. It follows a woman who drifts quietly out of her own life and into the orbit of a small-time criminal, unfolding as a stark, emotionally hollow road movie. The American dream doesn’t feel shattered so much as quietly absent throughout the film.
Today, Wanda is widely regarded as a touchstone of American independent cinema, yet its reputation is largely the result of revival rather than initial reception. After a brief release in 1970, the film slipped from view for decades. A restoration and reissue in the mid-2010s introduced it to a new generation of critics and audiences who finally recognised its radical power. Or maybe it was a case of being there at the right place, right time. I mean, let’s face it, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) could have only displaced Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) in the British Film Institute’s once-in-a-decade critics’ poll in the 2020s.
Restorations are no longer niche events, but anchors in monthly programmes.
Watching an older film in a cinema as if it were brand new carries its own thrill. Berlin has long nurtured that tradition through dedicated repertory programming (the ever-reliable screenings at places like Babylon Kino come to mind) but restorations are increasingly appearing outside of themed nights, turning up across regular schedules like rediscovered premieres. For younger audiences raised on streaming abundance, this shift is particularly energising. A restoration offers a counter-algorithm: the surprise of a deep cut encountered in the dark with strangers. When a 20-something fills a seat for a 35mm restoration, it’s rarely because a marketing campaign told them to do so. Word travels differently, through a stray still or clip circulating online, or the insistence of a friend who simply says, “You need to see this properly.” For older audiences, the draw is slightly different, but no less potent. Restoration offers the chance to return: to see a beloved film renewed, colours revived, textures sharpened, details newly visible. At the same time, it opens the door to discoveries missed the first time around.
Films like Wanda, barely noticed on arrival but later recognised as quietly revolutionary, remind us that cinematic reputations are rarely fixed. Repertory culture has always had its strongholds. London’s Prince Charles Cinema and Los Angeles’ New Beverly Cinema have long functioned as sanctuaries for audiences who prefer their cinema curated rather than churned. What feels new now is the scale. Restorations are no longer niche events, but anchors in monthly programmes, advertised with the same enthusiasm that was once reserved for opening weekends. Perhaps this reflects a wider instability. There’s comfort in what has already endured. A restored print carries visible proof of care: evidence that someone believed the work was worth saving. To sit with it in the dark is to share that belief. Or perhaps the explanation is simpler: we go to the cinema not merely to be entertained, but to be moved, unsettled, sharpened. When what’s new fails to deliver that, audiences look elsewhere. The past, it turns out, is not a museum.
