Edgar Reitz is a filmmaker, author and professor born in Hunsrück, Germany, in 1932. In 1957, he began working in documentaries and, in 1967, released his first feature Mahlzeiten, which took him to the Venice Film Festival and delineated the German New Wave. Throughout the following decades, Reitz would not only direct several films, but he would also publish books and articles on film theory, aesthetics, and the future of filmmaking. In 1995, he created the “European Film Academy” in Carlsrue, and directed it until 1998. Amongst his more important films, one finds Cardillac (1969), Die Reise Nach Wien (1973), and the Heimat trilogy, comprised of 31 feature films shaping one of the longest epics in cinema. During his career, Reitz was celebrated by several universities and earned multiple awards across European Film Festivals such as Venice and Berlin. In 2006, he was presented the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.