HEIMAT – ITS BACKGROUND

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The two film cycles HEIMAT and HEIMAT 2 are recognised milestones in the history of television. This is largely due to the literary character of their narratives and their concentration on people. The characters in this epic story of a total of 42 hours duration are more than mere cinematic fictions. Their realism and involvement in historical events have led to them being compared with the great characters of world literature. The “Corriere della Sera“ placed HEIMAT and HEIMAT 2 among the greatest achievements of European cinema. The “New York Times“ included them among the best of world television. It has often been said that these two film marathons make their audience “addicted“ as soon as they enter into their inner world and become caught up in the current of their narrative. The HEIMAT Cycles have been shown in every part of the world and have given people a new sense of the links between their lives and the course of history. The German word “Heimat“ has become familiar throughout the world. Its very untranslateability attracted audiences to the film. Rarely has a film so firmly secured its landscape and people in the hearts of its audience as HEIMAT has. The Hunsrück and the valleys of the Rhine, Moselle and Nahe became symbols of heritage, change and return. The film’s locations continue to entice tourists from distant lands who want to see where the “Simons” lived, who often feel that they are as real as members of their own families.



What Grandmother Katharina (HEIMAT 1) could not have known: Thus began the “Century of the Woman.“

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The secret of the success of the HEIMAT cycles is that they tap into our collective experiences and memories. In the first part it was the memory of a rural past, which plays so large a role in life in the towns. Who has not had a grandmother who lived in the country. Who does not long for the easy intimacy of a settled family life? Who does not enjoy seeing images on television which are immediately familiar? The writer and director Edgar Reitz does not see himself as a remote artist but as the voice of the many, whose stories you can only tell if you are one of them yourself. With HEIMAT 2 it was the student years of the Sixties, which opened up a flood of exciting memories for the many who lived through them. That is why audiences see more than a film in HEIMAT. Their own lives become its theme and aesthetic subject. They recognise that their own lives are worth a film.