Titel.KINO 1/04.RV - german films

Auf Leben und Tod
– Sternstunden und Niederlagen der Medizin
A MATTER OF LIFE & DEATH –
MAGIC MOMENTS & DARK HOURS IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE
The history of medicine is the never-ending story of
the struggle for life: a saga of triumphs and defeats.
Some of the most important and intriguing aspects are
covered in this four-part documentary. To draw the
viewer into the narrative, the people portrayed are
presented as members of a family gathered together
at a garden party. The episodes depict four human
periods of aging and the typical medical challenges
that go along with them, based on a statistical model
of the World Health Organization.
The scenes are centered on one particular person: by
means of the time slice technique the action is turned
into a ”frozen“ 3-dimensional scene and follows the
selected person to hospital treatment – and goes back
into history. A family member suffering from heart
problems, for instance, leads to a segment on the discovery
of the circulatory system by William Harvey in
1628. Authentic locations, original instruments, historically
accurate re-enactments – these are the hallmarks
of the fascinating documentary sequences
alternating with moving scenes of a 21st century host
family.
Genre History, Medicine Category Documentary TV
Year of Production 2004 Directors Nina Koshofer,
Stefan Schneider Screenplay Christian Feyerabend, Dr.
med. Ulrich Knoedler Director of Photography Martin
Christ Editor Jens Greuner Producer Uwe Kersken
World Sales:
german united distributors Programmvertrieb GmbH · Bettina Oebel
Breite Strasse 48-50 · 50667 Cologne/Germany
phone +49-2 21-92 06 90 · fax +49-2 21-9 20 69 69
email: bettina.oebel@germanunited.com · www.germanunited.com
Production Company GRUPPE 5 Filmproduktion/
Cologne Length 4 x 52 min Format Digi-Beta, color
Original Version German Dubbed Version English
Nina Koshofer was born in 1968 in Muehlheim/Ruhr. After
studying English & German Literature and Political Science, she
worked as a journalist for several well-known newspapers and
journals. In 1996, she started writing for television and directing.
A selection of her television documentaries includes:
Secret Oracles (1997), Cologne Cathedral (1998),
Aix-la-Chapelle Cathedral (1999), Millenium
Trend (1999), Sphinx: Under the Spell of Gold
(2001), Storm over Europe: The Wandering Tribes
(2002), and A Matter of Life and Death: The
History of Medicine (2004) together with Stefan
Schneider.
Stefan Schneider was born in 1960 in Duesseldorf and
trained as an actor and dancer in Cologne, London and Paris.
From 1982-1991, he worked with various contemporary
dance companies and in 1998 began working as an author and
director. A selection of his films includes: Gendarmes
(short, 1990), Public Effort (short, 1992), The Bronia-
Principle (short, 1993), the video installation
Surveillance (1994), Time of Harvest (1997), San
Francisco – California’s Dream of Freedom (documentary,
1999), In the Garden of Death (documentary,
2000), Paris, City of Love (documentary, 2001), and
Ecuador and the Islands of the Galapagos (documentary,
2003).
kino 1 new german films
2004 37
Scene from
”A Matter of Life & Death“