German director Wim Wenders has withdrawn from circulation his 1975 film Wrong Move, because of a scene featuring a child actor topless who was 13 years old at the time of filming.
“Streaming, TV and distribution partners have been instructed to no longer make the film publicly accessible,” the director said in a statement released on Wednesday.
The decision comes after actor Nastassja Kinski, now 65, told Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper last month that she has spent 15 years unsuccessfully trying to get Wenders to change the film.
Speaking at the German film awards ceremony last Friday, Wenders had said that while he would not shoot a scene in the same way today, Wrong Move was also a product of its age, and editing it retrospectively would require a broader discussion within the film industry.
His comments sparked criticism across German media, with fellow film-maker and Babylon Berlin actor Julius Feldmeier writing in an open letter to Wenders that “it’s your responsibility alone to set things right”.
In a statement on his foundation’s website, Wenders apologised to Kinski and said the non-profit Wim Wenders Foundation, which owns the film, would withdraw it from all current channels of distribution.
“As the only person responsible at the time for Wrong Move who is still here, I recognise that Nastassja Kinski should have been better protected back then,” Wenders said in the statement.
“For that, I apologise to you, Nastassja, unreservedly, no ifs or buts,” he added.
Wenders, 80, is one of the most influential German directors of the postwar period, whose award-winning films include Wings of Desire, Paris, Texas, Buena Vista Social Club and Perfect Days.
Kinski, daughter of the late Fitzcarraldo actor Klaus Kinski, made her acting debut in Wrong Move, playing a mute teenage acrobat. She went on to work with Wenders again in 1984’s Paris, Texas, and starred in more than 60 films in Europe and the US.
In her interview with Süddeutsche, Kinski said about Wrong Move: “That was my first film, he was my first director and he didn’t protect me. Even though I didn’t know much aged 13, I knew that that wasn’t not ok.”
Kinski has previously successfully campaigned against a TV film by Das Boot director Wolfgang Petersen, in which she was shown naked aged 15. Her lawyer told news magazine Der Spiegel that they had come to an agreement over the film’s distribution with broadcaster NDR.