Diese Bilder verfolgen mich - Dr. Med. Alfred Jahn

original title:
Diese Bilder verfolgen mich - Dr. Med. Alfred Jahn
other titles:
These images haunt me - Dr. Med. Alfred Jahn
country / year of production:
Germany / 2002
original length:
100 min. , color
premiere:
10 February 2004
genre:
Documentary
based on:
director:
Hans-Dieter Grabe
film script:
producer:
cinematographer:
editor:
composer:
cast (role):
Alfred Jahn (Himself) , Alfred Jahn
more:
plot synopsis:
Director Grabe portrays pediatrist Alfred Jahn from Landshut, Germany, who has been spending his holidays in Ruanda for several years to operate children free of charge.
The long, calm shots show Dr. Jahn in the sparse operating room in Kigali`s central hospital, standing at the operating table on which children lie, waiting for anesthesia, the operation, fear in their eyes, that soon give way to curiosity, relaxation and even trust.
in 1996 came across an ad: Ruanda, this small country in Central Africa, marked by civil war and genocide was in need of surgeons. In 1997 Jahn began to spend his holidays in Ruanda, mostly on his own costs in order to operate children free of charge. unusual for Africa: Jahn neither works for an organisation nor does he bring a team to help him. He relies on his capacity to motivate the local personell and his experience to compensate for the lack of technical equipment.
keywords:
children , made-for-TV film , youth during wartime , war-disabled , expulsion , doctors in war
war:
Ruandian Civil War (1994)
literature:
remarks:
A unique interdepency of the work of a doctor and the work od a director: in 1966 it was Grabe`s first Vietnam film ("Die Helgoland in Vietnam"), that gave Jahn the push to go to Vietnam as a surgeon`s assistent. It was only four years later that the two met in person on the German hospital ship "Helogoland" in Da Nang, the center of the Vietnam war. In front of the camera Jahn explained the injuries of his civil patients ("Merely light fighting in the Da Nang area").
In 1983 Grabe visited Jahn at his Landshut home where Jahn had become head of department ("Lebenserfahrungen: Dr. med. Alfred Jahn - Kinderchirurg in Landshut"; englisch: "Life experiences: Dr. med. Alfred Jahn - pediatrist in Landshut). plagued by self-doubt Jahn aksed himself whether the children he had seen and treated in Thailand and Vietnam needed him far more urgently: "These images haunt me".
As in this film and the previously released "Do Sanh - The Last Film" Grabe presents the life of someone he discovered himself and accompanied for decades.
availability: