Thomas Heise‘s new film HEIMAT IS EIN RAUM AUS ZEIT is epic and intimate, from the vantage point of something small it tells of something big, and it is extremely subjective yet not self-indulgent. For over 3 and a half hours it is solely about Heise‘s family, starting from his grandfather Wilhelm, who became a communist after his experiences in World War I, marrying a Jewish Viennese woman who lost almost her entire family in the Holocaust, moving on to father Wolfgang who was a philosopher in the GDR, enjoying privileges while often being scandalous, and finally Thomas himself, who became one of the most important German chroniclers of German history after the fall of the wall. MATERIAL is one of his most known works and Heise has compiled an immense amount of material here too: especially the countless letters of his relatives which he reads out himself in a sonorous voice. The sounds are sometimes underlaid with contrasting historical recordings. A lot of emptiness can be seen, empty forests, abandoned benches, train tracks that seems to lead to nowhere or a camp in the East. You can, you must, find your own associations with what you see and succumb to the narrative flow.

Michael Meyns

Translation: Elinor Lewy