Films by Daniela Schmidt-Langels

Germany 2022, 52 min
by Daniela Schmidt-Langels

Many famous people, from Albert Einstein and Picasso to Steven Spielberg are known to be dyslexic. Hardly any aspect of school-based learning has been researched as extensively as dyslexia over the last 130 years. But researchers still have no clear idea of what causes the condition and how it can be treated. The film shines a spotlight on the difficult and psychologically challenging situation faced by people with dyslexia in everyday life in Germany, Great Britain and France. It looks at success stories and highlights researchers’ tireless efforts to identify causes and find suitable therapies.

Germany 2021, 52 min
by Daniela Schmidt-Langels

Millions of people around the world suffer from the little-known ME/CFS. The pandemic has turned scientists' attention to the condition – because its symptoms are similar to the long-term symptoms suffered by Covid-19 patients.ME/CFS – myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome – is a severe neuroimmunological condition that often leads to a high level of physical disability. Between 17 and 24 million people throughout the world suffer from ME/CFS. Women are affected more often than men. Despite its prevalence, neither the general public nor doctors know much about ME/CFS, even though the WHO included the condition in its international list of neurological disorders in 1969. Research is still very much in the early stages and there are neither drugs nor therapies to treat the disease. Sufferers find themselves left on their own and are usually stigmatised as depressed or mentally ill. The new Sars-CoV-2 virus makes the condition especially significant. Some Covid-19 patients suffer from long-term effects of the virus weeks or even months after becoming infected – with similar symptoms to those of ME/CFS. We follow patients and their relatives as well as internationally renowned scientists and discuss that latest findings in research. They all bring home the gravity and severity of the condition and dispel the myths that for so many years have stood in the way of scientific progress.

2018, 87 min
by Daniela Schmidt-Langels

Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla ranks among today’s shooting stars of the classical music scene. At the age of only 30 years, the Lithuanian was unanimously selected by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) to be their musical director; succeeding Andris Nelsons and Sir Simon Rattle. Gentle, strong, calm and self confident, she says. “The only thing that could ever stop me is my own lack of imagination.”This is a film about an extraordinary conductor.

Germany 2009
by Daniela Schmidt-Langels

Julia Franck is one of the key female writers in new German literature and winner of the German Book Prize for her novel “Die Mittagsfrau”. The film links her personal biography with key moments in her work and thereby also tells a piece of east-west German History. World Sales: Wavelength Pictures, UK