The series (11 episodes) tells the story of the village of Schabbach, in the impoverished Hunsrueck hills in Germany through the years 1919-1982. The central character is Maria, at the beginning a teenage girl, by the end an elderly matriarch, and her family who, like the rest of the German people, live through the crises of 1920s, Nazism and eventual rebirth following WWII. Heimat is a superb cinematic chronicle of social and political change, beautifully shot and breathtaking in its depth and scope. The honesty of the depiction and the use of Schabbach as a microcosm of the German psyche in such a tumultuous century makes this epic tale a timeless masterpiece.