Play Video

Sleeping Sickness

Directed by
Ulrich Köhler

Written by
Ulrich Köhler

Production
Komplizen Film, Topkapi Films

Release year
2011

Runtime
91 min

Story

Ebbo and Vera Velten have been living in Africa for a long time. Ebbo is managing a sleeping sickness program. His work is fulfilling. In contrast, Vera feels increasingly uncomfortable with her life in the expat community of Yaounde, and the separation from her daughter Helen, 14, who is attending boarding school in Germany.
Ebbo has to give up his life in Africa or he loses the woman he loves. But he now feels like a stranger in Europe. His fear of returning increases day by day.
Years later. Alex Nzila, a young French doctor of Congolese origin, travels to Cameroon to evaluate a development project. He hasn’t been to Africa for a long time. But instead of finding new prospects, he encounters a destructive, lost man: like a phantom, Ebbo slips away from his evaluator.