German director Eva Trobisch's second feature film, Home Stories, is an ensemble piece focusing on three generations of the same family, released in French cinemas on July 29. Seven years after As If Nothing Happened, which addressed the issue of rape, she now explores the lingering effects of a Germany shaped by its contemporary history.
A teenage girl in search of recognition
The film follows 16-year-old Léa, who lives with her younger brother, recently divorced parents, and an aunt she admires, as she prepares to participate in a televised singing competition. Meanwhile, her grandparents run a hotel in the heart of the forests of former East Germany, a hotel with a glorious past now threatened with bankruptcy—a setting where each family member searches for their place and their future.
Led by the young actress Frida Hornemann, who plays her very first role in a film, alongside more experienced actors like Max Riemelt and Eva Löbau, the story was born from an unexpected moment: bedridden and ill, Eva Trobisch was deeply moved while watching a talent show by the reaction of a family backstage, more so than by the performance of the contestant herself.
Greiz, a city symbolizing German reunification
To situate her story, the director chose the city of Greiz, in Thuringia, which she discovered thanks to her grandfather, a city in the former East Germany with elegant Art Nouveau boulevards now deserted, whose scenery reflects the still visible traces of the historical and social upheavals of reunification.
After two feature films centered on a single character, Eva Trobisch wanted to explore for the first time a choral narrative, using interiors as well as the surrounding forest to stage the evolution of the feelings of each member of this family.
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