Sleeping Sickness

Winner of the Best Director gong at Berlin Film Fesitval 2011, this drama follows a German doctor stuck in Cameroon for reasons he can’t wholly explain.

"Sleeping Sickness is a marvel, springing off Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness with its perceptive slowburning story. It’s structurally bold, making an unannounced forward leap of three years in the middle, and switching focus to the Marlow role of a young, black Parisian colleague (Jean-Christophe Folly, funny and bewildered), who’s posted to check on him… I think it’s the best thing here [in Berlin], both for confidently diagnosing the rotten state of international development in Africa, and giving us rich characters who retain a bit of mystery." (Source: NZ International Film Festival 2011)

Less