Pina

Pina (2011) is Wim Wenders' documentary portrait of choreographer Pina Bausch — watch it online on iFILM. Bausch died of cancer in June 2009, five days before filming was scheduled to begin. Wenders had spent twenty years trying to make this film with her. He finished it without her.

The dancers of Tanztheater Wuppertal perform four of Bausch's signature works — The Rite of Spring, Café Müller, Kontakthof, and Vollmond — across the stages and streets of Wuppertal. Between performances, each dancer speaks about Pina in short offscreen monologues, words running under images of moving bodies. Wenders shot in 3D not for spectacle but for depth: dance loses something essential on a flat screen, and the technology here earns its keep.

The film was shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. It is the best available record of what Bausch's company did and why it mattered — intimate, physical, unhurried. Stream Pina online on iFILM.