Heidi is a 1965 Austrian family film directed by Werner Jacobs and starring Eva Maria Singhammer, Michaela May and Jan Koester.
Eight-year-old Heidi (Eva Maria Singhammer) lives with her grandfather, Alp-Oehi (Gustav Knuth), in a cottage in the Swiss Alps.
She enjoys spending time in the mountains with her goatherd friend Peter (Jan Koester), who believes that one has to choose between either living in the Alps and herding goats or learning to read.
Aunt Dete (Lotte Ledl), the sister of Heidi's mother, initially took care of the child, but she entrusted her to the old man when she got a job in Frankfurt in Germany.
Heidi's grandfather suggests that "someone" (implying, in a non-explicit manner, himself) could repair the two uninhabited rooms she possesses next to her house, so this "someone" could live there during the winter.
Aunt Dete travels from Frankfurt to the Swiss village where she meets Alp-Oehi while he is repairing the rooms he intends to live in with Heidi during the winter.
Alfred Sesemann (Ernst Schröder), a wealthy businessman and a widower, is seeking a companion for his teenage daughter Klara (Michaela May), who has been left wheelchair-bound by an illness.
During her brief meeting with Alp-Oehi, she asks the old man to let her take Heidi with her to Frankfurt, where the child will receive a good education and keep Klara company.
All the while, as Aunt Dete promised, Heidi hopes to be allowed to return to her beloved mountains and live with her grandfather again.
One day, Heidi leaves the mansion, walks to the cathedral and climbs up to its tower to see her mountains, but to no avail.
When Heidi returns, Miss Rottenmeier demands explanations and suddenly understands: Dete had tricked the child so she would follow her to Frankfurt.
When Alfred Sesemann returns from a long business trip, he is moved and overjoyed when he sees his child making a few steps towards him.
Doctor Classen convinces the businessman to send Heidi back to her grandfather because her illness is caused by her homesickness.