Turning of the Tide (6/6)

Turning of the Tide (6/6)

Hagenbeck's "Peoples of the World Show" at the Berlin Zoo brings an exotic patient to the Charité: An Indian woman has come down with measles, a disease which has been wiped out in the Reich thanks to inoculation. Virchow, the unchallenged Number 1 at the Charité again after his triumph over his colleague Koch, is fascinated by anthropology and accepts the patient as an object of demonstration. Nursing assistant Stine keeps her distance from the "cannibal", but the Indian woman's fate doesn't leave her cold as Stine has to care for her.
Koch becomes an outcast. Only his closest friends appear for his wedding, including Ida and Ehrlich. Koch's scientific failure also unjustly discredits Ehrlich and Behring's work. No one at the Charité wants to try their diphtheria serum on human patients. It plunges Behring into a deep depression. Ida suspects the brilliant but sensitive man needs a strong woman at his side - and is willing to give up on her dream of studying medicine for his sake.
But when Virchow gives a ringing public endorsement to Behring's remedy, it throws Behring into a manic euphoria, inconsiderate of anyone around him. He takes advantage of his colleague Ehrlich, who is Jewish and suffering from increasing antisemitic repression, as they negotiate with pharmaceuticals company Hoechst over a deal for the drug. His relationship with common Ida also seems no longer useful as he dreams of social climbing, and he becomes engaged to Else Spinola. Ida has worked off her debt to the Charité and is accepted to study medicine in Switzerland.

The Charité
Between breakthroughs in medical research and enormous social upheavals in 1888, the Charité is well on its way to becoming the most famous hospital in the world. It is a city within the city, following its own laws and rules. At the beginning of the Wilhelmine Period, up to 4,000 patients are treated annually. Along with the expected injuries caused by the booming Industrialization, patients are suffering from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid and cholera, as well as from sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis. In addition, there are over 1000 students, taught at the Berlin University, who are being trained in this famous hospital by the eventual Nobel Prize winners and most prestigious doctors of the time: Rudolf Virchow, the founder of the modern health care systems, Robert Koch, the discoverer of the tuberculosis virus, Emil von Behring, whose work contributed greatly to the healing of diphtheria and Paul Ehrlich, who developed the first drug against syphilis.

Sönke Wortmann - The Director
Director Sönke Wortmann is one of the big names in contemporary German cinema. His epic melodrama "The Miracle of Bern" (2003) was a world-wide success and his 2006 Football World Cup documentary, "Germany: A Summer's Fairytale", ranks among the country's most successful documentaries. He has also directed the opulent historical drama "The Pope" (2009) as well as "Maybe, Maybe Not" (1994), the most successful German film of the 1990s.