Edgar Reitz co-founded German auteur cinema and wrote film history with his Heimat trilogy. The way he impressively connected what he personally had experienced with the course of time, he now does here, too – in his autobiography. Reitz writes about his childhood in the 1930s, his adolescence during the war, the post-war era, the young man who wanted to travel, his student years in Munich where a new cultural world opened up to him, and finally the art of film: by signing the Oberhausen manifesto, he propagates the slogan “Papas Kino ist tot!”, the date of the founding of new German film; he meets writers such as Günter Eich, international film stars such as Romy Schneider and Luis Bunuel, and works with actors such as Hannelore Elsner and Mario Adorf and directors such as Alexander Kluge and Werner Herzog.
Reitz is a great chronicler of German yearning and history, as well as being a sensitive narrator who leads us from the pre-war era through reunification and right up to the present day. He keeps circling around the question of what it means to have a home and to belong and to disconnect from it, to leave and to return – thereby touching the central issue of our time. A very special documentation of life as an entire century, powerfully narrated, touching, impressive in its vividness. A wonderful work of recollection that is at the same time very topical.
“He gave us back a piece of Heimat … We bow down before Edgar Reitz.” Giovanni di Lorenzo in his laudation speech at the German Film Prize 2020.
“Not only is Heimat the crown jewel of new German film but it also marks a turning point in European film.” The Guardian
