Premiere followed by a discussion

Anyone can sleep—until suddenly they can’t anymore. Actor Jan Josef Liefers has painstakingly reclaimed his sleep; round-the-world sailor Boris Herrmann trains himself to fall asleep as if it were a muscle; and two women are struggling to find peace again at all.

Heike Jung has been sleeping so poorly for years that she can no longer work. After a long wait, she has finally secured a spot in the therapy program at the Sleep Center of the Pfalzklinikum in Klingenmünster, where she is learning something most people take for granted: how to sleep restfully again. Design student Julia Junior lives with narcolepsy, an incurable sleep disorder, and has structured her daily life so that she can meet the demands of her studies despite her condition.

For solo round-the-world sailor Boris Herrmann, on the other hand, sleep is a competitive factor in his sport. In regattas like the Vendée Globe, the winner is whoever can endure being alone at sea—and whoever manages to get enough sleep despite the tension, danger, and noise. At the European IMOCA racing yacht base in Lorient, France—where he is setting sail across the Atlantic for The Ocean Race aboard his new racing boat, Malizia 4—he explains exactly how he trains for this challenge. And actor Jan Josef Liefers, who regularly discusses the topic with Charité sleep medicine specialist Ingo Fietze on the “Somnoversum” podcast, talks about his own sleep disorder and how he managed to get it under control.

These four stories are contextualized by leading voices in German sleep medicine, including Prof. Dr. Ingo Fietze, director of the Sleep Center at Charité Berlin. Together, they illustrate the effects of sleep deprivation on the body and mind, where medicine can help today—and where it reaches its limits. Following the premiere, the protagonists, experts, and the film crew will engage in a discussion with the audience.