Sleeping sickness (film)

Movie
Original title	Sleeping sickness
Country of production	Germany
original language	German , French
Publishing year	2011
length	91 minutes
Age rating	FSK 6
Rod
Director	Ulrich Koehler
script	Ulrich Koehler
production	Maren Ade , Christian Cloo (ZDF), Anne Even (ZDF / Arte), Janine Jackowski , Birgit Kämper (Arte), Katrin Schlösser , Frans van Gestel
camera	Patrick Orth
cut	Eva Könnemann , Katharina Wartena
occupation
Pierre Bokma : Ebbo Velten Jean-Christophe Folly : Alex Nzila Jenny Schily : Vera Velten Hippolyte Girardot : Gaspard Signac Maria Elise Miller : Helen Velten Sava Lolov : Elia Todorov Francis Noukiatchom : Dr. Monese Ali Mvondo Roland : Ruhemba Isacar Yinkou : Joseph

Sleeping sickness is a feature film of the German director Ulrich Köhler from the year 2011 . In the drama about a German development worker (played by Pierre Bokma ) in Cameroon , West Africa , the problems of development aid are discussed. The cinema release in Germany took place on June 23, 2011. Köhler's directorial work has received several awards, including the German Film Art Prize and the Prize for Best Director ( Silver Bear ) at the Berlin International Film Festival .

The film was produced by Accomplizen Film in coproduction with öFilm , Why Not Productions , IDTV Film and in cooperation with the German-French TV channel ARTE and ZDF .

action

The Dutch doctor and development worker Ebbo Velten has been working with his wife in various African countries for almost 20 years. Her daughter Helen attends a boarding school in Wetzlar, Germany. After Helen visits, the family decides to return to Germany.

Three years later: The viewer is introduced to Alex Nzila, a young employee of the World Health Organization with Congolese roots, who is supposed to evaluate a development aid project in Cameroon. It is a project to contain a sleeping sickness epidemic led by the retarded Ebbo. Alex meets Ebbo, now a destructive, lost person, torn between his wife in Germany and the new family he built up in Cameroon.

History of origin

Köhler, the son of development workers, spent part of his childhood in the Republic of the Congo. These experiences, combined with more recent research that Köhler carried out in various African countries, form the basis for the film, which primarily consists of small everyday observations that reveal truths about the post-colonial relationship between Europe and Africa.

Reviews

Die Zeit described the film as “an illuminating expedition, a glimpse of our view of a foreign continent” with the “most surprising ending that has been seen in German cinema for a long time”. The headline in Der Spiegel was : “Finally a developed view of Africa”, in which Ulrich Köhler succeeds in “showing the continent's progress and at the same time letting it keep its secret”.

Awards

• 2011: Award for the best director ( Silver Bear ) of the Berlin International Film Festival
• 2011: Art Award of the German Film Festival

literature

• Meeting. In: Die Zeit , No. 26/2011

Web links

• Sleeping sickness in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Review by ARTE ( Memento from January 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Release certificate for sleeping sickness . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2011 (PDF; test number: 126 737 K).