– BERLINALE 2026: Kai Stänicke recounts the tale of an emigrant returning home in search of the past, only to be confronted by the fallibility of memory
Philip Froissant (left) and Paul Boche in Trial of Hein
How can we validate whether our memories reflect reality – or, perhaps more accurately, “reality”? Hein (Paul Boche) has just returned to his home village on a remote island in the North Sea after 14 years. He tells no one the reason for his return, at first, while the secluded community’s suspicions rise, their mental image of Hein so stuck in the past. Forcing him to try to recall moss-covered memories as if the events occurred only yesterday, the village puts him on trial to determine whether he is really Hein, evoking memories from the past moulded by time, space and sentimentality. With Trial of Hein, a creative, Rashomon-esque interrogation of the fallibility of memory, Berlin-based director Kai Stänicke is partaking in the Berlinale’s Perspectives section.
With the movie set entirely on a grassy island with a mythic and fable-like feel, Stänicke strips back even the concept of the village through the very theatrical set design, in which homes are merely just walls and physical façades (production design by Seth Turner) in a muted, earth-toned colour scheme. Its shell-like nature never deters from its commitment to realism, instead playing up two parallel ideas: that what we see on the outside may not truly reflect what lies beneath, and that our hero returns to only what he remembers and not what’s really inside.
Both are crucial to what Hein holds close to his heart, as we discover over the course of the two-hour introspective, but never plodding, running time. Numerous drone shots from high above look down upon the tiny village as if visualising an encircled flock of sheep. Accompanied by a simmering orchestral score by Damian Scholl, these moments emphasise the echo chamber in which its residents comfortably live and the herd mentality by which they abide.
Through key flashbacks cut from various recollections during the period of the trial, Hein is played at different ages by Frederick Lepthien and Emil Hauss. His desire to return begins to be revealed as his attachment to the now-married, red-haired Friedemann (played by Philip Froissant as an adult), who shuns him despite the strength of their mutual teenage love, during which period they dreamed about leaving the island to live together. As the village remembers Hein through rose-tinted glasses, he remembers his childhood very differently: forced to dance, bad at gutting fish and never able to truly live as himself. Like courtroom recounts by victims of traumatic events, Hein’s affectively supercharged memories begin to never live up to an impossible standard.
With its profoundly emotional staying power, Trial of Hein is crafted from the building blocks of universal dualities: of coming and going, of staying and leaving, of loss and discovery, of hopelessness and hope, of belonging and estrangement. Stänicke manages to strike a balance between a very simple screenplay and an intricate tapestry of topics, removing twists, turns and other distractions to allow viewers to connect on an individual level with these deeply human binaries. The movie’s refusal to be flashy becomes its greatest strength, flexing its ability to reach into the viewer’s soul and past self to touch buried emotions, activating and entrapping them gently like a Venus flytrap – and this it does lovingly and with flying colours.
Trial of Hein is a German production staged by Tamtam Film, Lupa Film and ZDF – Das Klein Fernsehspiel. Heretic is selling the film worldwide.
