Actress, model and sex symbol of the 70s-80s era, Nastassja Kinski has appeared in over 60 films and worked with renowned directors such as Wim Wenders, Roman Polanski, Francis Ford Coppola and David Lynch. She will attend the screening of Paris, Texas (Palme d’Or, 1984), on June 3th, and will hold a master-class within Transilvania Talent Lab, on June 5th. During the Closing Ceremony on June 6th, which will take place at the National Theatre in Cluj, she will receive the Special Award for the Contribution to the World Cinema.
Daughter of actor Klaus Kinski, she was born in Germany, in 1961, and moved to the US later on. Her first film was directed by Wenders, The Wrong Move (1975), and at the tender age of 17 she had already worked with Marcello Mastroianni (Stay as You Are, 1978) and became famous with the role of Tess (1979), in Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Thomas Hardy, a role that brought her a Golden Globe and aCésar nomination. Shortly after the film’s premiere, Kinski posed for a Richard Avedon poster that made headlines: nude and with a huge python covering her body.
She appeared in films such as One from the Heart (1982), Paul Schrader’s erotic thriller Cat People (1982), Exposed (1983) – starring alongside Rudolf Nureyev and Harvey Keitel, Unfaithfully Yours (1984) – co-starring Dudley Moore, The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), alongside Jodie Foster, or Maria's Lovers (1984), by Andrei Koncealovski.
In 1984, one of Wim Wenders' most beloved films, recipient of the Palme d'Or, turned her into an international staple. Paris, Texas, a masterpiece without age, tells the story of Harry Dean Stanton’s character, who comes out of the Southern Texas desert and creeps back into the lives of the people he abandoned many years ago. Kinski stars as his estranged wife and her film appearance became an icon of the seventh art. “Kinski’s greatest strength as an actor might be her gift for suggesting areas of her inner life that audiences could never access. Few screen performers are capable of making themselves at once so undeniably, physically present on-screen and yet so mysteriously withdrawn”, writes Dennis Lim on the ocassion of a Nastassja Kinski retrospective last year at The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York.
In the ‘90, she starred in films by Mike Figgis (One Night Stand, with Wesley Snipes), Ivan Reitman (Father's Day), Neil LaBute (Your Friends & Neighbours), and in a new Wim Wenders, Faraway, So Close!. Catherine Deneuve and Rupert Everett co-starred with her in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (2003), and in 2006, she rejoined forces with her partner from Paris, Texas, Harry Dean Stanton, for the mysterious David Lynch project Inland Empire.
Nastassja Kinski was a member of the jury in Cannes (1988) and San Sebastian (2014) – in the latter, Vlad Ivanov was her jury colleague. Apart from her impressive film career, she is involved in various humanitarian campaigns such as “Sports for Peace” and “Cinema for Peace” and permanently supports the actions of the Red Cross Committee. This year, in February, she attended the Berlinale Cinema for Peace Charity Gala.
