Trial of Hein | image+nation

Der Heimatlose
Germany, 2026, 122 min.
Director: Kai Stänicke
Original version with English subtitles
With Paul Boche, Philip Froissant, Emilia Schüle, Stephanie Amarell

14 years later, Hein returns to a wind-scraped island in the North Sea. Its eerie, Brechtian settlement of half-built houses guarded by a community prone to paranoia. Hein plunged into a dark scheme to prove his identity and the true nature of a once great love. Though he once called the tiny island home, Hein is unrecognizable even to his closest confidants, Greta and the forlorn Friedemann. Is Hein as devious as the villagers imply? Or is their ignorance some slippery plot hatched against him? Armed with a locket meant to unseal his relationship with Friedemann, Hein is determined to be taken for who he says he is and to allow others this same grace. His insistence leading to a trial presided over by an imperious leader, the community’s goodwill dependent on its outcome. A trial where competing memories are judged, and Hein and Friedemann are compelled to remaster their childhood game of “Lies.”