This year’s three major film festivals – Berlin, Cannes and Venice – were dominated by a comment made by veteran German filmmaker Wim Wenders, who, as jury president at the Berlin Film Festival, was quoted saying filmmakers should stay out of politics. Over the following days, at Berlin Film Festival and then at Cannes Film Festival in May, every jury member and every major actor and director was asked whether he stood by his comment?On Sunday, Wim Wenders attended a press conference at the Venice Film Festival press conference for his new documentary From inside out – The architecture of Peter Zumthor, the veteran German filmmaker was asked about his comment.He clarified,”What I said then was, as filmmakers, we are the opposite of politicians. We have empathy. Politics work without empathy; that’s all I said.We have a very different thing. I’m not working with a mindset of politicians, we are working with a mindset of empathetic people. And we are into changing things, politics are into confirming what is.That’s what I said, and was quoted as: ‘We have to stay out of politics,’ and that is not what I said, because it’s not what I said now, and I said the same thing then. The frame of film-makers is a different mindset than the mindset of politicians, and we should not work with that mindset. We work with a different set of rules. I said it again, and I hope you’re not misquoting me, and say we have to stay out of politics because we do the opposite. We are the antidote.”What Wim Wenders said at BerlinIn February, at the Berlin film festival, the jury head Wim Wenders spoke at press conference that how any conflict affects lives of people, people understand it better when they watch movies. He said,”You don’t know anything if you watch news, but you know so much more If you come out of a movie and you see a person in his or her situation and you see his or her suffering and you see how he or she would rather want to live. Cinema has an incredible power of being compassionate. News is not empathetic. Politics is not empathetic but movies are and that’s our duty.”During the press conference he emphasised,“We can not enter the field of politics, we have to stay out of politics. If we made movies that are dedicatedly political, then we are political, but we are counterweight of politics, we are opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people and not politicians. That is our duty.”I don’t think politics and art should be divided: Cannes Film Festival jury president and South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wookAt the Cannes Film Festival opening jury press conference, jury president and South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook was asked about his stance on the statement made by Berlin Film Festival jury members: “As it was said at the Berlin Film Festival, should art and politics be separated?”Park Chan-wook responded, “I don’t think politics and art should be divided. I think it’s a strange concept to think they are in conflict with each other. Just because a work of art has a political statement, it should not be considered an enemy of art.At the same time, just because a film is not making a political statement, that film should not be ignored.”