HEIMAT EUROPA Film Festival Simmern

The HEIMAT EUROPA Film Festival is the outstanding film festival of the Hunsrück region and one of the most distinguished regional film festivals in Rhineland-Palatinate. The 8th edition in 2026 continues a tradition that has made the festival a fixture in the German film landscape in just a few years.

The patron is director Edgar Reitz, born in 1932 in Morbach in the Hunsrück and one of the most important German filmmakers of the post-war era. His trilogy “Heimat — Eine deutsche Chronik” (1984), “Die zweite Heimat” (1992), and “Heimat 3 — Chronik einer Zeitenwende” (2004) is one of the most remarkable cinematic explorations of 20th-century German history. Reitz immortalized the Hunsrück as the fictional Schabbach, giving the region its own cinematic identity. His commitment to the film festival is an expression of his deep connection to his home region.

The 2026 festival is themed “The Golden Twenties” and is part of the Kultursommer Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate Summer of Culture), which takes up this year's theme statewide. The Golden Twenties of the 20th century — the short, intense period between inflation and the Great Depression, which experienced an extraordinary flourishing in art, film, literature, and music — form the thematic framework for showcasing contemporary European films on home, identity, and social change.

The opening will take place on Friday, August 7, 2026, on the central Fruchtmarkt in Simmern. The large open-air cinema will also be held here over the 16 festival days — a special atmosphere that combines the film experience with the summer weather in the Hunsrück. Additional screenings will take place at the Pro-Winzkino, the local art-house cinema, which will be used for more intimate film presentations and special screenings.

The focus of the festival is on the competition films: feature films, documentaries, short films, and experimental works from all over Europe that deal with themes of home, migration, identity, social change, and European history. Three prizes will be awarded: the prestigious “Edgar”, named after the patron, the Youth Award by a student jury, and the Audience Award, chosen directly by the audience during the festival.

The film program will be accompanied by workshops, film discussions with directors and actors, panel discussions on European issues, and a supporting program with live music in the style of the 1920s. The awards ceremony on Saturday, August 22, 2026, will mark the glamorous conclusion.