Thomas Heise’s Final Documentary ‘Übergang,’ a Potential Locarno Highlight, Reflects on Time and Transience
Thomas Heise’s final documentary, “Übergang”, will premiere out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival after being completed by his long-term collaborators Peter Badel and Chris Wright following his death in 2024. The film turns an unfinished portrait of Berlin’s Schönhauser Allee into a wider reflection on Heise’s life, German reunification and the political changes that shaped his work.
Produced by Ma.ja.de. Filmproduktion, it combines new black-and-white street footage, archive material, photographs, voiceover and interviews with Heise. Its title means transition or passage, referring both to the area’s transport interchange and to Germany’s journey from East Germany through the fall of the Berlin Wall to present-day concerns about war, rearmament and historical memory.
In short
- Heise’s unfinished final film premieres at Locarno.
- It connects Berlin street life with German history.
- Collaborators completed it after his 2024 death.
Explained simply
Thomas Heise was a German documentary film-maker whose work often examined life and political change in East Germany and after German reunification. Schönhauser Allee is a major street in Berlin, a city that was divided during the Cold War before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
The film draws on footage, photographs, archive material and recordings of Heise, whose collaborators completed the project after his death. Its setting and title connect an everyday Berlin place with wider changes in Germany, and with questions about how people remember the past as the present changes.