Moving History Spezial - HEIMSUCHUNG

VISITATION – A CENTURY-LONG STORY 

Germany, France 2026, Dir.: Volker Schlöndorff, Feature Film, 118 min.

In the early 1930s, a modern house is built on the shore of a lake in the Mark Brandenburg, designed by an architect (Lars Eidinger) and his wife (Susanne Wolff), who want to start a new life there. But as the political upheavals of the century unfold, the residents and ownership of the property change. Among them is a Jewish textile manufacturer (Ulrich Matthes), who loses the property as a result of Nazi persecution. After the war, the house once again becomes the center of life in the GDR, among others for a writer (Martina Gedeck) who has returned from exile and her family. Volker Schlöndorff’s film adaptation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel “Heimsuchung” breaks down its complex structure in favor of a more linear narrative and focuses the plot on a few central characters whose life stories intertwine over several decades. From their personal fates unfolds a panorama of German history, from the Weimar Republic through to the post-reunification era—told from the perspective of a house that endures all these changes.