Life before Life

Authors: Dominique Klughammer, Marc Haenecke. No genre - ARD / NDR - 2008 - 2 x 45 min

The moment of our birth is the end of our first life: a life in warm water, safely inside the mother’s body, symbiotic and mysterious; a life which is part of us all but of which we don’t have the slightest memories. It is a life that only lasts nine months - yet this is time enough for a small wonder to occur: out of a single-celled egg arises a complete human being.

In Secret Life, we will juxtapose complex computer animations simulating the development of the embryo within the womb with the emotional process of a mother-to-be to open the door to our own past.

The film is much more than an excellent scientific documentary. Secret Life takes us on a touching journey to our own beginnings and finds answers to the recurrent question of what, in essence, constitutes the human being. We will make an invisible world visible.