Films by Ulli Wendelmann

2023, 90 min
by Ulli Wendelmann, Denis Kliewer

The Ebers Papyrus, the world’s oldest medical manual, takes us back to ancient Egypt and to the turbulent times in the late 19th century, when the Western world was obsessed with finding oriental treasures.The film tells of the discovery of the world’s oldest medical manual. Georg Ebers, a German Egyptologist, came upon the 3,500-year-old work in Luxor in the late nineteenth century and carried it back with him to Saxony in a spectacular manner. The book contains more than 800 formulas, along with clinical pictures and texts for medical education, making it an invaluable find. For the first time, we can learn of how Egyptian healers conceived of human life and health almost four thousand years ago. This unique amalgam of empirical knowledge, religion and magic was set down on a papyrus scroll almost twenty metres long. The documentary also sheds light on the outstanding historical significance of papyrus as a writing material. For thousands of years, papyri recorded the cultural developments in the country, preserving the changing relations between Orient and Occident for posterity. The film also recounts the orientalism hype that gripped the West in the nineteenth century and the often illegal hunt for ancient trophies in the land of the Pharaohs. European and African experts are today engaging in an international dialogue in an attempt to advance our knowledge of both the writing medium of papyrus and the development of the art of healing.

Germany 2022, 52 min
by Ulli Wendelmann, Claudia Grüner

The film looks at the traumatic experiences of patients in East German psychiatric care. A powerful portrayal of the struggle to reform 'soul work under socialism'. Everyday life in psychiatric institutions in East Germany was defined by dire material conditions, excessive medication administration, coercion and violence. In the early 1960s, dedicated doctors tried to reform mental health care in the GDR. Unsuccessfully. Other attempts to introduce more respectful doctor-patient relationships and to improve the rehabilitation and integration of the mentally ill failed in the 1970s and 1980s. Lack of resources, distrust of state authorities, but also resistance from senior physicians who were afraid of losing their privileges prevented the “democratisation” of psychiatric care. Many SED functionaries believed depression, suicide or alcoholism should not even exist in socialist Germany. In the 1980s, Lothar Tiedtke spent time in a psychiatric institution in Stralsund in the north of the GDR. Being committed to a psychiatric facility aged 19 for what he believed were also political reasons profoundly impacted Tiedtke’s life. The qualified shipbuilder is still fighting for his rehabilitation today – so far unsuccessfully. Another patient, Chris Timmler, was not freed until 1989 after spending 10 years in a psychiatric institution. Her diagnosis of schizophrenia proved baseless. This documentary is a powerful portrayal of the struggle to reform 'soul work under socialism'.