Veteran Germandirector Edgar Reitz's fourth Heimat film, Heimat Fragments (Heimat Fragmente), isexpected to have its world premiere at this year's Venice Film Festival.

This willcontinue a tradition which saw Reitz's ground-breaking first Heimat premierein Venice in 1984, followed by Heimat 2 in 1992,and Heimat 3 - A Chronicle ofEndings and Beginnings as "evento speciale" in 2004. The three series of 30 films have atotal running time of 42 hours.

Moreover, Reitzwas a member of the jury for the competition at the festival last year.

Speaking to ScreenDaily.com during the MunichPreviews this weekend, Heimat Fragment's sales agent Antonio Exacoustos of Arri Media Worldsales explained that the 140-minute film is made up ofpreviously unseen footage from all three Heimats and new material shot onhigh definition with the figure of Hermann's daughter Lulu (played by Nicola Schoessler) from Heimat 3 takingthe viewers back through the epic. Some characters will appear who did not makeit to the final version of the three Heimats as wellas certain scenes being shown from different camera angles.

"Reitz isplaying here with technology combining the new material on HD with the footageshot on film stock from over 20 years ago. Artistically, this has a tremendouseffect linking the past with the present," Exacoustossaid, adding that the film "has a philosophical background aboutfilmmaking per se."

It isunderstood that Reitz would like the screening of Heimat Fragments in Venice to be accompanied by a discussion with fellowdirectors about the future of filmmaking to herald a watershed of newbeginnings in the spirit of the Oberhausen Manifestowhich he wrote with other German filmmakers such as Alexander Kluge in 1962.

HeimatFragments has been pre-soldto Tartan in the UK and Lumiere in Belgium.