Teachers' Lounge

Germany

Middle School

Carla Nowak is in her first job, teaching math and physical education.

She believes strongly in collaboration with students and creating a participatory environment.

When the principal with some professors enter the classroom to carry out a series of questions and check the situation following a series of thefts, she feels a strong unease; she does not agree with such actions.

Unconvinced of the responsibility of students and the prejudice that affects some rather than others, she decides to take an initiative to identify who the culprit may be.

Her dedication to her work and to her relationship with the students, compared to the rest of the mostly disenchanted and uncooperative professors, places her in an increasingly indifferent, stringent and pressing position.

Ilker Çatak, through an increasing and pressing pace, focuses his gaze on the school in general through a microcosm that shields its policy in the moreover contradictory and scarcely effective "zero tolerance."

Student mutiny, parental intervention, distrust, the culture of suspicion, accusations and the absence of professional solidarity are accurately portrayed.

Carla's idealism and good intentions remain trapped in a maze of skepticism and distrust.

What does the rigidity of "zero tolerance" mean when power, relational and professional dynamics are compromised by the macrosystem that determines the microcosm of institutions.

What can dedication, idealism, and passion for one's work determine if trust and ethics are overridden by cynicism, indifference, and the culture of suspicion, where even parents are always ready to interfere in educational organization..

Careful and critical observation becomes a pressing rhythm on school reality, which is hardly willing to analyze itself by questioning itself, creating and fueling a climate of generalized discontent.

The film also takes cues from real-life situations that happened to the director to portray the impenetrability of the classroom, that of the professors, seen with an aura of mystery.

The scene of the interview with Prof. Carla by the editorial staff of the school newspaper is the most effective description of this: the inquisitorial behavior suffered by the institution is revealed in its radical reproducibility where the mistrust of the children affects the adults.

The depiction of a reality, the school reality rather static and far from exemplary for the cognitive and emotional growth of children and adolescents.

A film about the educational collapse of family and school: the excess of disciplinary interference, of mutual indifference loses sight of education in favor of an education that neglects the cognitive and emotional paths of young people with all the expressions in which life can fall.