Credits: 9EkieraM1; derivative work by LeonNefo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Nastassja Kinski appears in Düsseldorf in 2017, far from the teenage images now under dispute. The portrait creates a sober distance from the 1975 film. Credits: 9EkieraM1; derivative work by LeonNefo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Nastassja Kinski is asking for the removal of images shot when she was 13 in The Wrong Move, a Wim Wenders film released in 1975. From the outset, the case has put European cinema in the face of a difficult conflict. The issue is protecting a performer filmed as a minor, who is now challenging the circulation of an intimate scene. But the debate also touches a heritage work that some refuse to cut back in the name of present-day sensibilities. Revived in Germany, this request forces us to examine the film as much as the conditions under which it was made.
A Request Revived In Germany
The case came back into focus on May 22, 2026, with a long interview given by Nastassja Kinski to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The German actress, now 65, looks back on her first film role. It was The Wrong Move, directed by Wim Wenders when she was a teenager.
The sequence she disputes shows her character, Mignon, in a bed scene with an adult male character. Sources consulted describe it as a partial-nudity scene, without it being necessary to repeat the details. The core issue is not the scene itself, but how it was made, the presumed consent, and its current distribution.
According to SRF, which published a summary of the case on May 29, Kinski has for several years been asking for this sequence no longer to be viewable. Swiss public broadcaster SRF also reports that her lawyer intends to challenge the continued distribution and has mentioned a compensation claim. However, no public court document has been identified at this stage. These requests should therefore remain attributed to the actress, her counsel, or the media reporting them.
What Wenders Says Today
Wim Wenders spoke publicly on May 29 in Berlin, at the Deutscher Filmpreis. The 80-year-old filmmaker was receiving an honorary award from the Deutsche Filmakademie, announced in March for his body of work. In the award’s presentation text, the institution describes him as a major figure in German and international cinema.
According to Deutschlandfunk, Wenders acknowledged before the audience that he would not shoot that scene today. He said he knows more now and lives in a different world than the one of the 1970s. He also framed the issue as both a moral and a heritage problem.
The director did not announce an immediate cut. Instead, he called for a collective discussion. Can a film be changed after the fact because a scene hurts an actress he says he respects? And if that scene is cut, what precedent would that set for other older works? In practical terms, a change would not affect only a screening copy. It would also concern restored versions, masters, video editions, and platform catalogs. Cinematheque programming and the information given to the public would also be at stake. This way of shifting the decision toward heritage is precisely what some critics reproach him for. But it also sums up the difficulty of the case. The individual request runs up against rights holders, rights ownership, and the film’s material history.
A Heritage Film That Has Become A Test Case
Released in 1975 in West Germany, The Wrong Move holds an established place in Wim Wenders’ body of work. The Cinémathèque française presents it as a 103-minute film, written by Peter Handke from Goethe. The listing also names Rüdiger Vogler, Hanna Schygulla, and Hans-Christian Blech in the cast. It recalls its place in Wenders’ road movie trilogy and notes Nastassja Kinski’s first role.
This heritage dimension explains why the case goes beyond a single exchange between an actress and a director. The Wrong Move is not a forgotten film: it still circulates in arthouse programming, catalogs, and platforms. The Cinémathèque française notably screened it on May 8, 2026, a few weeks before the public debate resumed.
The Kinski-Wenders case therefore raises a concrete question for cultural institutions. How should a work containing images shot with a minor be presented today, when the person involved considers the circumstances unacceptable? The possible answers are not equivalent. Cutting a scene, contextualizing a screening, or limiting certain uses do not produce the same effect. Warning audiences or leaving the work unchanged also does not send the same symbolic message.
Consent, Minority, And The Right To One’s Image
The debate is especially sensitive because it involves an actress who was a minor at the time. In 1975, performers’ consent was not regulated as it can be today on set. Protection for minors was discussed even less. Since MeToo, intimacy coordinators have become standard in film and television. Rules protecting young actors and scrutiny of power imbalances have also been strengthened.
These changes do not settle the case of The Wrong Move retroactively. They do, however, help explain why the argument about historical context no longer ends the debate. Three layers overlap. The right to one’s image concerns the identifiable use of a person and how they accept, or dispute, that use. The moral rights of the performing artist instead protect respect for their name, status, and performance. They do not automatically amount to a veto over any future circulation of an already completed work. The rights of producers, authors, distributors, or rights holders finally govern copies, contracts, and restorations.
At this stage, it would be imprudent to claim that a screening would be illegal. The available sources do not specify who currently holds all exploitation rights. They also do not say what formal steps have been taken, or which court might be seized. The case brings together copyright, image rights, contracts, and the protection of minors. That is also why the words used matter. A request for removal is not a court ruling. A regret expressed by a director is not a legal admission.
Shared Responsibility For Distributors
The case does not concern Wim Wenders alone. If the work continues to circulate, distributors, platforms, cinémathèques, broadcasters, video publishers, and programming institutions also take part in its public exposure. Their responsibility is not the same as the director’s. It becomes visible as soon as an actress contests the presence in accessible copies of images of her as a minor.
This responsibility can take several forms. An institution can document the production context and avoid highlighting the contested scene. It can host a discussion or check whether an alternative version exists. It can also decide that a work should remain visible, but with context. That choice already exists for some films marked by racist, sexist, or violent representations.
The risk, for heritage cinema, would be to reduce this discussion to a simple opposition between censorship and preservation. The word censorship is not enough to describe a request from a performer filmed as a minor. She is challenging the exploitation of intimate images shot when she was 13. Conversely, the principle of repair alone does not settle the question of collective works. It also leaves open acquired rights and the documentary value of a film in its original state. This debate extends a reflection on #MeToo in French cinema, where creation and public responsibility speak to one another.
The Precedent No One Wants To Decide Alone
Wenders’ position, as it appears in his Berlin remarks, comes down to this fear of precedent. If he cuts a scene from The Wrong Move, other filmmakers, rights holders, or actors could ask to rework older films. The argument is worth hearing, but it cannot erase the specificity of this case. This involves images of a minor, not a simple aesthetic disagreement or an author’s change of heart.
The debate should therefore focus less on the untouchable purity of heritage than on the procedures for handling the most serious cases. Who decides? On what criteria? With what role for the person filmed? And how can we avoid preserving a work in a way that, through inertia, extends a harm felt by a performer? The answer will also matter for other works involving minors. That includes fiction films, documentaries, television archives, and old advertising campaigns. Children were sometimes exposed in them under standards that are no longer today’s standards. Any solution will have to distinguish between repairing harm, historical context, and simply rewriting the past.
Nastassja Kinski may not get the removal she is seeking. Wim Wenders has not, to date, announced any such decision. But the case has already shifted the conversation. It forces cinema institutions to look at films. It also forces them to look at the conditions under which certain images became heritage.