Wim Wenders abandons the shoot of one of his own films in order to help his friend and fellow director Nicholas Ray create his swan song before he dies.

Director Nicholas Ray is eager to complete a final film before his imminent death from cancer. Wim Wenders is working on his own film Hammett (1982) in Hollywood, but flies to New York to help Ray realize his final wish. Ray's original intent is to make a fiction film about a dying painter who sails to China to find a cure for his disease. He and Wenders discuss this idea, but it is obviously unrealistic given Ray's state of health.—Karl Engel <[email protected]>