Die Heimat 1, 2, 3... website backstage

The building of this website started after an e-mail correspondence between ReindeR Rustema (reinder@rustema.nl) and Alan Andres (aeandres@ma.ultranet.com). It all started with me posting a little message on the internet (the newsgroup rec.video.releases to be precise) asking if anybody could help me get a VHS copy of DZH part 3. Time passed and on, but June 11 1996 I got a message from Alan Andres in Boston. At the time my little note was the only indexed occurence with the words 'Die Zweite Heimat' and 'Edgar Reitz' on the internet. Until Alan read my note he believed he was "the only person who saw DZH" since he never met anybody else who did until then. From this contact an interesting and long correspondence emerged dealing with topics like the anti-intellectualism in the US, TV vs. film, Dennis Potter, high-culture/low culture, Europe vs. US, European film vs. Holywood etc. and a lot more.

Very early on we decided to try wether this new medium, the internet, could help in making DZH known to more people. Since Alan once wrote a review of the DZH soundtrack CD-release he still had a copy of the DZH promotional material. I used this to make the website with. For months we just enjoyed the pleasure of having something in common with somebody on the other side of the globe and actually working on it together. Collecting articles, doing translations etc. As things slowed down a bit it once we got through the collected material untill suddenly it turned out that the website was found by other people on the net! The story still continues...


The the heimat123 website is a joint effort by ReindeR Rustema, Alan Andres and many others. Back to the main page.