Lest We Forget

A LONG-TERM STUDY OF A FAMILY WITH ALZHEIMER’S

She is young, likeable, attractive – and at the age of 42 knows as a result of a gene test that she suffers from Alzheimer’s. She is beginning to forget things, can no longer work and is withdrawing into herself. At the same time she is part of a family, with a husband and son. Hers is a hereditary form of the disease so there is a 50 per cent likelihood that her son will also suffer from the disease.

Nevertheless they try to lead a normal life. A family caught between hopes and fears, between normality and a state of emergency. A family that refuses to see itself as a victim of fate and instead intends to make the best of their life with Alzheimer’s.

It’s a life that reflects the feelings and circumstances of around a million Alzheimer sufferers in Germany and of their relatives and friends. Our camera follows the family for three years.

TEAM
Written and directed by: Thomas Liesen // Camera: Steffen Bohn // Additional camera: Erik Sick // Sound: Dennis Broer // Film editor: Jan Wilm Schmülling // Music: Thomas Wolter // Sound mix: Alexander Weuffen // Production assistant: Katja Sträter // Production manager: Oliver Gontram // Executive producer: Thomas Weidenbach // Commissioning editors: Ulrike Schweitzer, Birgit Keller-Reddemann (Dept. ‘Planet Schule’)

AWARDS
– Bayerischer Fernsehpreis ‘Der blaue Panther’ 2014
– Media award for science journalism 2014 of the ‘Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie, Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik und Nervenheilkunde’