Films by Thomas Heise

Germany, Austria 2019, 218 min
by Thomas Heise

The film picks up the biographical pieces of a family torn apart through the end of the 19th and into the 20th century.The used material is what remained of Thomas Heise’s family.It is about people who by chance found each other, only then to lose each other.Now it is their descendants, their children and grandchildren who are beginning to disappear.Fathers and mothers, sons and brothers, the affairs, the hurt and the joy in landscapes of transition – each bearing the intertwining, hallmarks of

Germany 2014, 83 min
by Thomas Heise

The beginning shows a dusty landscape somewhere on the outskirts of the city accompanied by a poem from 1921, written by Bertold Brecht and spoken by a young woman. It is about the disappearence of a man, how waiting for him fades and eventually the memory there of. 'Städtebewohner' tells the story of everyday life in the „Comunidad San Fernando“, a prison in Mexico City. About 200 prisoners are currently living here, offenders who were sentenced as juveniles for a maximum of 5 years to San Fern

2012, 74 min
by Thomas Heise

Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, is the 265th Pope. On his first official visit in his native Germany as the sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church, all official media are concentrated on this unique event. But in Thomas Heise's film we do not get to see any of the official pictures. What we see is how the machine of the state exercising its control functions. (visionsdureel)The motorway has been shut. Mobile fences dissect the landscape. Heli

Germany 2012, 65 min
by Thomas Heise

CONSEQUENCE follows the tiring working day between Christmas Eve and New Year at a small crematorium operating 24/7. This medium-sized business guarantees to deal with a dead body within three days - ensuring reliable planning for undertakers. So those left behind have the chance to quickly get back to their own productive everyday lives. Swift cremation helps the affected cope with bereavement quickly, says the company brochure. There’s a lot to be done. “It’s the economy, stupid!” In pictures

Germany 2011, 100 min
by Thomas Heise

SOLAR SYSTEM is a film about disappearance, about some people of the indigenous community of the Kollas of Tinkunaku, a region in the North of the province Salta, part of the district Orán, Argentina. Non-verbally, exclusively through images the film approaches the people of a small indigenous Kolla community. We accompany the seasonal tramp of Viviano and Ramona from the valley up to the village of Santa Cruz, 3000 meters above sea level, where they spend the summertime until the autumn rain ma

Germany 2009, 166 min
by Thomas Heise

Something always remains, a rest, that cannot be subsumed. (From EISENZEIT 1991) The Film MATERIAL contains observations, scenes, fragments, stories and processes. Images from the late eighties in the GDR to the immediate present of the year 2008 in Germany. The montage of these images creates a picture of these times, where past, present and future mirror one another. It is my picture. In 1987 author Heiner Müller brought me a video camera back from West Berlin and I began using it to record im