Heimat II: A Chronicle of a Generation (1992– )
"Die zweite Heimat - Chronik einer Jugend" (original title)

The movie consist of 13 separate episodes each handling a period between 1960 and 1970. The length of these periods varies from one day to some years. It tells the story of a group of ... See full summary »

Stars:

Henry Arnold, Salome Kammer, Frank Röth

6 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Series cast summary:
Henry Arnold	...	Hermann Simon (13 episodes, 1993)
Salome Kammer	...	Clarissa Lichtblau (13 episodes, 1993)
Frank Röth	...	Stefan Aufhauser (13 episodes, 1993)
Noemi Steuer	...	Helga Aufschrey (11 episodes, 1993)
Franziska Traub	...	Renate Leineweber (11 episodes, 1993)
Daniel Smith	...	Juan Subercasseaux (11 episodes, 1993)
Lena Lessing	...	Olga Mueller (11 episodes, 1993)
Martin Maria Blau	...	Jean-Marie Weber (11 episodes, 1993)
Armin Fuchs	...	Volker Schimmelpfennig (10 episodes, 1993)
Hannelore Hoger	...	Elisabeth Cerphal (10 episodes, 1993)
Michael Schönborn	...	Alex (10 episodes, 1993)
Holger Fuchs	...	Bernd (9 episodes, 1993)
Anke Sevenich	...	Waltraud 'Schnüsschen' Schneider (8 episodes, 1993)
László I. Kish	...	Reinhard Doerr (8 episodes, 1993)
Edith Behleit	...	Mutter Lichtblau (8 episodes, 1993)
Peter Weiss	...	Rob Stuermer (8 episodes, 1993)
Manfred Andrae	...	Gerold Gattinger (7 episodes, 1993)
Michael Stephan	...	Clemens (7 episodes, 1993)

Storyline

The movie consist of 13 separate episodes each handling a period between 1960 and 1970. The length of these periods varies from one day to some years. It tells the story of a group of people in Munich (mostly music and film students). Every episode focuses on a different character from the group, although the main storyline and character, the young composer Hermann, continues. The movie tells a story in many different levels about love, friendship, misfortune, loss, art, politics, history with important historic events of the decennium in the background. It was the most costly and ambitious drama production in German television, although very cinematographic. Believed to be partly autobiographic.

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Plot Keywords:

politics | friendship | love | 1960s | art | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Edgar Reitz Filmproduktion GmbH [de] (german)

Country:

Germany UK Spain Sweden France Norway Finland Austria Denmark Australia

Language:

German

Release Date:

5 September 1992 (Germany)

Also Known As:

2nd Heimat

Filming Locations:

Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Box Office

Budget:

DEM 34,200,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Edgar Reitz Film (ERF), Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Sender Freies Berlin (SFB)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

1,532 min

Color:

Black and White Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

With a total running time of 25 hrs 32 min, it holds the Guinness World Record for 'Longest Film Commercially Shown In Its Entirety' as it premiered on theater screens in Munich, Germany in September 1992.

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Connections

Followed by Die andere Heimat (2013)

User Reviews

Better than "Heimat" ... or is it?

As much as I admire the artistic quality of these 13 films, I still like the original series of 11 "Heimat" films from the 80s even more and I think there's a reason why "Die zweite Heimat" was shown only once on German TV while there have been several reruns of "Heimat". Actually there are 2 reasons:

1) The TV scene in Germany has changed dramatically between 1983 and 1993: the two (+ one local) public channels back then are in competition with more than 15 private channels now. This was not a good thing for the attention span of the audience and the quality of the programming.

2) Apart from this general reason there's a problem with "Die zweite Heimat" itself IMO. Almost all the protagonists are ambitious artists (in various fields like music or film) with a high political awareness. In this sense they form an active avantgarde of Germany's society in the 60s, which is quite in contrast to the mostly passive protagonists of "Heimat", who just react to the turbulent times they live in. Although this gives Edgar Reitz the chance to paint an even more precise and detailed picture (because he was part of this avantgarde and knew people like Clarissa, Juan or Reinhard), it's harder for the viewer to identify with these people. An example: the girl from Detmold (can't remember her name) is on her way to become a left-wing extremist (RAF-terrorist?) long before 'ordinary' people join the APO in 1968. Being so much ahead of your time makes it very hard for your contemporaries (let alone the viewer of the films), to understand your feelings and motivations.

Nevertheless these films belong to the best German films of the 90s and I would love to see them again. If you also like this 'chronicle'-genre let me recommend two other German series made for TV which are nearly just as good IMO and deserve to be better known: "Rote Erde" is about some families who go through the changes in the Ruhr-area mining industry between about 1890 and 1919 (first 9 episodes) resp. 1923 and the 50s (second 4 episodes). "Löwengrube" is about a policeman's family in Munich over three generations in the 20th century (32 episodes).