Sleeping Sickness
Schlafkrankheit
Germany, France, Netherlands
2011
91 Min
Color
1.85:1
German, French, Dutch
Synopsis
Ebbo and Vera Velten have spent the better part of the past twenty years living in different African countries. Ebbo is the manager of a sleeping sickness programme. His work is fulfilling. Vera, however, feels increasingly lost in Yaounde’s ex-pat community. She can’t bear the separation from her 14-year-old daughter, Helen, who is attending boarding school in Germany. Ebbo must give up his life in Africa or he risks losing the woman he loves. But his fear of returning to a land now remote to him increases with each passing day.
Years later. Alex Nzila, a young French doctor of Congolese origin, travels to Cameroon to evaluate a development project. It’s been a long time since he set foot on this continent, but, instead of finding new prospects, he encounters a destructive, lost man. Like a phantom, Ebbo slips away from his evaluator. –Berlinale
Director
Ulrich Köhler
Born in Marburg/Lahn on 15.12.1969, after a number of sojourns in various countries abroad, he spent two years (from 1989-91) studying art in Quimper in France. He took up studies in philosophy in Hamburg and subsequently attended the faculty of Visual Communications at Hamburg College of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1998. He made five short films before directing his feature film debut, Bungalow, which was shown in the Panorama section of the Berlinale in 2002. This film received the German Film Critics’Award and several other prizes at festivals at home and abroad. He lives in Berlin. —filmportal.de
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Matt Richards
5Mar12
Change, change and metamorphosis. This ones an artful, gentle study of the ex-pat/ aid-worker experience in Africa and life as the outsider. Variety labelled it too politically correct but I found it far more interesting and less vulgar in it's approach than the recent 'White Material'. The performances are all nice and naturalistic and the camera work subtle and unobtrusive. 3.5 stars
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NYFF 2011. Ulrich Köhler's "Sleeping Sickness"
By David Hudson on October 8, 2011
“One of the year’s very best films” for one; another senses a tone of “misguided superiority.”
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By Adrian Curry on October 7, 2011
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By Adrian Curry on September 30, 2011
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By David Hudson on February 19, 2011
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Sleeping Sickness, LFF 2011
By robaldo on November 9, 2011
There are some films/filmmakers who revel in their weirdness. Audiences going into watch the new David Lynch readily expect an explosion of surrealism. A sinister midget? Cross country lawnmowers… read review
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