Stopped on Track

Frank and Simone live in a terraced house outside Berlin with their two children. They have built the life they wanted. Then Frank is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and the doctor gives him a time. The film follows what comes after, day by day: the treatment not working, Frank's speech and memory going, the question of how much the children should understand, Simone's exhaustion. Nobody becomes a hero and nobody delivers a fine line. Andreas Dresen directs, with Milan Peschel as Frank and Steffi Kühnert as Simone. A hundred and ten minutes. Most of the dialogue is improvised, and real doctors play the hospital scenes. It won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in 2011.