The teachers’ room | A class apart

A series of small thefts takes place in the teachers’ lounge of a school somewhere in Germany. Carla, a promising young teacher, decides to investigate secretly. Very quickly, everyone will be shaken by his discoveries, while the management of the establishment struggles to manage the crisis.

The Teachers’ Lounge (The teachers’ room in French version with subtitles) is released in Quebec barely three weeks after the end of the teachers’ strike, as if to remind us of the immense challenges that teachers must face on a daily basis. With his fourth feature film, the young Turkish-German filmmaker İlker Çatak creates an educational thriller that keeps us in suspense, while awakening us to the reality of the school environment.

Carla Nowak is hired to teach high school math and gymnastics. When a series of petty thefts occurs at school, one of his students is suspected… probably because he is Arab. Shocked, Carla decides to shed light on this affair. But her investigation will place her in front of outraged parents, frustrated colleagues, disobedient students and weak management.

Result, everyone turns against her, but the teacher persists and signs for the good of a young teenager, Oskar, involved in this affair despite himself… The promising teacher will find herself torn between her educational ideals and the heaviness of the system.

With a simple structure and an effective storyline, the film makes a detailed analysis of the many problems of the current educational environment, without claiming to offer a realistic portrait. We should not try to understand everyone’s motivations. Better to indulge in the “snowball” effect, specific to the genre of suspense, here with omnipresent anxiety-inducing music and long journeys in the corridors of the establishment.

In the role of Carla, Leonie Benesch (The White Ribbon) is excellent. In that of Oskar, his student who seeks to protect his school employee mother, Leonard Stettnish is a revelation!

The teachers’ room did well at the last German Film Awards, with five awards (best film, best director, best screenplay, best editing and best actress, Leonie Benesch). It is also nominated for an Oscar in the category of best international film.

Between thriller and social parable, this film is a curious cross between Polytechnicby Denis Villeneuve, and 30 lives, by Fabienne Larouche! A great surprise.

The teachers’ room is presented in the original version in German and Polish with French and English subtitles.

Indoors

Drama

The Teachers’ Lounge (V. F.: The teachers’ room)

İlker Chatak

Leonie Benesch, Michael Klammer, Eva Löbau

1:35 a.m.

7.5/10