An experience like no other, renowned director Wim Wenders creates an expressive portrait of one of the world’s most prominent and important contemporary artists, Anselm Kiefer. Anselm played as a Special Screening at Cannes 2023.

Anselm treats the audience to an exclusive, front row seat to watch the artist at work. Mining cultural texts and Kiefer’s personal history, the film contextualises his life’s work, while taking the audience on an experiential voyage of discovery. Textual pleasures become vivid before our eyes, as we watch Kiefer roam through his enormous warehouse filled with his art, and the objects he uses to make it. We watch as he creates his monumental artworks using lead, concrete, glass, textiles, plant material, books and fire.

For over two years, Wenders traced Kiefer’s path from his native Germany to his current home in France, connecting the stages of his life to the essential places of his phenomenal career that spans more than five decades. The result is a profound study of the artist’s work, which explores human existence and the cyclical nature of history, inspired by literature, poetry, philosophy, science, mythology and religion.

Serpentine Gallery’s Artistic Director and most prominent Art critic in the UK Hans Ulrich Obrist will host the recorded Q&A after the film.