MK2 Films is shooting “Curiosity Room,” a remake of Wim Wenders’s cult 1982 documentary “Room 666,” during the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by MK Prods. in collaboration with the Cannes Film Festival, “Curiosity Room” will be directed Lubna Playoust, an actor (“The French Dispatch”) and filmmaker who notably helmed “Le Cormoran.”
Following the same set up as the original film, “Curiosity Room” is filming every day of the festival in a room at the Marriott Hotel on the Croisette, where 30 filmmakers, many of whom are either on juries or have movies and projects presented at this year’s Cannes, will answer questions about filmmaking and the future of cinema. Playoust is asking fellow directors if “cinema is a language about to get lost, an art about to die?,” said Nathanael Karmitz, MK2 Films’s CEO.
The remake is particularly relevant at this point since the film industry is going through a major transition with as streaming services and the pandemic has changed moviegoing habits and upended business models.
The roster of participating filmmakers includes Audrey Diwan, the helmer of the Venice Golden Lion prizewinning “Happening,” Pietro Marcello (“Scarlet”) and Joachim Trier, who sits on the Cannes jury. David Cronenberg and Claire Denis are also expected to take part in the documentary.
The original documentary featured interviews with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Steven Spielberg, among others.
Rosalie Varda, the daughter of the late filmmaking legend Agnes Varda, is producing “Curiosity Room.” Varda is also handling MK2 Films’ sprawling film library of over 800 films from France and around the world, including the collections of François Truffaut, Charlie Chaplin, Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy and Jacques Rozier. The library also boasts films by Claude Chabrol, Michael Haneke, Abbas Kiarostami, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, David Lynch, Alain Resnais and Gus Van Sant.