Film Archive

Dr. Alemán

Official Selection - Competition 2008 / Dr. Alemán / Germany 2008

Marc, a young German doctor, arrives in the Colombian metropolis of Cali on an exchange visit and starts work in a local hospital. But he gets some tough experience in a deprived neighbourhood were he makes some new friends and also finds love. The inquisitive European longing for a bit of excitement, however, gets mixed up in the world of crime, which puts paid to the opinions, ideals and dreams he had entertained until now.

Synopsis

Marc, a young German doctor, arrives in the Colombian metropolis of Cali on an exchange visit and starts work in a local hospital. The operating theatre looks like a war zone: most of his patients have stab or gunshot wounds, the result of street scuffles. The young man from a traditional family of doctors disregards the word of warning from his superiors and sets off into the deprived neighbourhood of Siloé looking for a bit of excitement: he befriends the kids from the local gang and falls in love with a stall-holder called Wanda. His new life of drugs and dangerous encounters taints his reputation as a “German doctor”, and distances him from his colleagues at the hospital and his host family. He ultimately gets mixed up with one of the local gangsters, the ruthless killer El Juez, and realises that his mission to treat everyone, no matter who they are, acquires completely new dimensions in this kind of world. The young idealist comes into total conflict with his native environment and with everything he had believed in until now… This dramatic tale of a foreigner in a different country who gets some tough experience passing through the unjust “school of real life”, is the second feature film by Tom Schreiber.

About the film

106 min / Color, 35 mm
World premiere
Director Tom Schreiber / Screenplay Oliver Keidel, Tom Schreiber / Dir. of Photography Olaf Hirschberg / Music Josef Suchy / Editor Andreas Wodraschke / Producer Harry Flöter, Jörg Siepmann, Arne Ludwig / Production 2Pilots Filmproduction / Cast August Diehl, Marleyda Soto, Victor Villegas, Andrés Parra, Hernán Méndez, David Steven Bravo / Contact 2Pilots Filmproduction, Telepool
www: www.dr-aleman.com

About the director

Tom Schreiber (b. 1969, Freising, Germany) began as a camera assistant. He studied film at the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne and the Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV in Cuba. He gained experience as assistant director in Spain and Germany. He began making a name for himself with his short features (e.g. Viene del cielo, 1997; Vita reducta, 1999) and, in 2003, debuted with the feature-length film Fools (Narren) which was produced by “Road Movies”, Wim Wenders production company, and it was featured at the Berlin IFF. He is currently working on the feature-length documentary Vaterland with Francisco Hervé, and also the screenplay for the feature film The Pool.