Although one may be tempted to classify The Teacher’s Lounge (Das Lehrerzimmer) as a treatise on the social dynamics within the setting of a high school in Germany, there is far more at work here that is indicative of the Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film bestowed upon the work this year. It is, in short, one of the best films of the year.
The film begins with math teacher Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) calling her class of high school students to order using a series of brief calisthenic-like movements to start the day. Throughout the course of the day, Carla’s dedication to the profession becomes evident. But when a series of thefts is found to be plaguing the school, and one of her students is suspected of the crime, she attempts to investigate the pilfering herself. This leads her to heated confrontations with colleagues, parents, and...
The film begins with math teacher Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) calling her class of high school students to order using a series of brief calisthenic-like movements to start the day. Throughout the course of the day, Carla’s dedication to the profession becomes evident. But when a series of thefts is found to be plaguing the school, and one of her students is suspected of the crime, she attempts to investigate the pilfering herself. This leads her to heated confrontations with colleagues, parents, and...
- 2/10/2024
- by Mike Tyrkus
- CinemaNerdz
In a penetrating essay on the life and work of Salvador Dalí, George Orwell observed the following about intellectual ambition: “It seems to be, if not the rule, at any rate distinctly common for an intellectual bent to be accompanied by a non-rational, even childish urge in the same direction.” Orwell was thinking mainly of artists and scientists, but I am sure he would have agreed that the same is true of politicians––that urges to hold office and curry favor with the crowd are often more explicable in terms of childish fancies of kings and courts than they are in terms of highbrow things like duty and virtue.
İlker Çatak, the German-Turkish director and screenwriter, is clearly aware of this idea, and in his latest film, The Teachers’ Lounge (Das Lehrerzimmer), he goes some way toward proving its validity. He presents, on the one hand, an engrossing scandal at a German high school; and,...
İlker Çatak, the German-Turkish director and screenwriter, is clearly aware of this idea, and in his latest film, The Teachers’ Lounge (Das Lehrerzimmer), he goes some way toward proving its validity. He presents, on the one hand, an engrossing scandal at a German high school; and,...
- 12/26/2023
- by Oliver Weir
- The Film Stage
The official German Oscar entry for Best International Feature is an insular, pulse-pounding thriller set within the confines of a school that, for cinematic purposes, doubles as a microcosm of society in general circa 2023 where facts don’t matter, misinformation is rampant, suspicions run hot, divisions run deep, racism still rears its ugly head, and no one can be quite sure where, and even if they want to, fit in.
A critical hit beginning at Berlin, and then winning much talk at Telluride, Toronto and AFI festivals, this fascinating movie is a Blackboard Jungle of a different stripe, but still one that puts a critical finger on our educational institutions by way of the human scope. That it is shot (by cinematographer Judity Kaufmann) in a claustrophobic 4:3 aspect ratio only adds to the tension created by co-writer (with Johannes Duncker) and director Ilker Çatak (a past student Academy Award...
A critical hit beginning at Berlin, and then winning much talk at Telluride, Toronto and AFI festivals, this fascinating movie is a Blackboard Jungle of a different stripe, but still one that puts a critical finger on our educational institutions by way of the human scope. That it is shot (by cinematographer Judity Kaufmann) in a claustrophobic 4:3 aspect ratio only adds to the tension created by co-writer (with Johannes Duncker) and director Ilker Çatak (a past student Academy Award...
- 12/15/2023
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
"It's about mathematics not magic." Sony Pictures Classics has revealed the US trailer for the German film titled The Teachers' Lounge, made by Ilker Çatak. It won a bunch of awards already, with rave reviews from almost everyone who has seen it, earning €1.8 million at the German box office. One of the best foreign films this year! When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals & the school system, the consequences of her own actions threaten to break her. This anxiety-laden, compelling psychological thriller is specifically about "the seismic repercussions that can come from the seemingly smallest of decisions." The film stars Leonie Benesch, Leonard Stettnisch, Eva Löbau, and Michael Klammer. A remarkably taut, gripping, fascinating film about how simple mistakes can go too far and how too many people are caught up in...
- 11/16/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
At the large, modern school where the contentious events of The Teachers’ Lounge unfurl, Carla Nowak is the newbie instructor, fresh-faced and eager. By the end of the film, she’s more chastened and anxious than bursting with gung-ho spirit — which is not to say she’s been defeated by the insanity around her. But she has learned a thing or two about the absurdity of organizational politics in the digital age of the antisocial socials, laid bare in İlker Çatak’s pointed yet never simplistic drama.
The outside world is barely glimpsed in the movie, and the microcosmic significance of the school premises, somewhere in Germany, couldn’t be clearer. As a smaller version of a contemporary tinderbox, the community of teachers, students, administrators and office workers that Çatak and his cast inhabit never feels overly weighted with symbolism. Its powder-keg dynamics are fully alive and infuriating, even as they transparently replicate,...
The outside world is barely glimpsed in the movie, and the microcosmic significance of the school premises, somewhere in Germany, couldn’t be clearer. As a smaller version of a contemporary tinderbox, the community of teachers, students, administrators and office workers that Çatak and his cast inhabit never feels overly weighted with symbolism. Its powder-keg dynamics are fully alive and infuriating, even as they transparently replicate,...
- 10/4/2023
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Los Angeles, Aug 24 (Ians) Signing up for the best International Feature from Germany, the country has picked Ilker Catak’s schoolroom drama ‘The Teachers’ Lounge’ to represent their work for the 2024 Oscars as part of the best international feature category.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, an independent jury picked the feature, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this year, from a 12-title shortlist.
‘The Teachers Lounge’ has been a massive hit in Europe and film stars Leonie Benesch, and is produced by Ingo Fliess. The movie had its world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama section, and won the Label Europa Cinemas prize.
Furthermore, it took five prizes at the German Film Awards, including the Lola in Gold for best feature film, and has been shortlisted for the European Film Award.
THR reported, Leonie Benesch stars in ‘The Teachers Lounge’ as an idealistic and ambitious young teacher who sees her...
According to The Hollywood Reporter, an independent jury picked the feature, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this year, from a 12-title shortlist.
‘The Teachers Lounge’ has been a massive hit in Europe and film stars Leonie Benesch, and is produced by Ingo Fliess. The movie had its world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama section, and won the Label Europa Cinemas prize.
Furthermore, it took five prizes at the German Film Awards, including the Lola in Gold for best feature film, and has been shortlisted for the European Film Award.
THR reported, Leonie Benesch stars in ‘The Teachers Lounge’ as an idealistic and ambitious young teacher who sees her...
- 8/24/2023
- by Agency News Desk
- GlamSham
Germany has picked Ilker Çatak’s schoolroom drama The Teachers’ Lounge to represent the country for the 2024 Oscars in the best international feature category.
An independent jury picked the feature, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this year, from a 12-title shortlist.
Leonie Benesch (Babylon Berlin, Around the World in 80 Days) stars in The Teachers’ Lounge as an idealistic and ambitious young teacher who sees her life unravel after a spate of stealing at her school sets off a series of events that bring out the ugliest aspects of her fellow teachers, parents and the pupils themselves. Leonard Stettnisch, Eva Löbau, Michael Klammer, Anne-Kathrin Gummich, Kathrin Wehlisch, Uygar Tamer and Özgür Karadeniz co-star.
The film won the Europa Cinemas Label prize as best European film in Berlin this year and beat out Edward Berger’s four-time Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front to take the top...
An independent jury picked the feature, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this year, from a 12-title shortlist.
Leonie Benesch (Babylon Berlin, Around the World in 80 Days) stars in The Teachers’ Lounge as an idealistic and ambitious young teacher who sees her life unravel after a spate of stealing at her school sets off a series of events that bring out the ugliest aspects of her fellow teachers, parents and the pupils themselves. Leonard Stettnisch, Eva Löbau, Michael Klammer, Anne-Kathrin Gummich, Kathrin Wehlisch, Uygar Tamer and Özgür Karadeniz co-star.
The film won the Europa Cinemas Label prize as best European film in Berlin this year and beat out Edward Berger’s four-time Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front to take the top...
- 8/23/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"Entire lives are being ruined because of her presumptions." Madman Films in Australia has unveiled the official trailer for an acclaimed German film titled The Teachers' Lounge, from filmmaker Ilker Çatak. This premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, earning unexpectedly positive reviews. It still has no US release date set yet, but is expected to open in theaters in more countries around the world later in 2023. It's already playing in cinemas in Germany right now. When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her own actions threaten to break her. This anxiety-laden, compelling psychological thriller is specifically about "the seismic repercussions that can come from the seemingly smallest of decisions." The film stars Leonie Benesch, Leonard Stettnisch, Eva Löbau, and Michael Klammer. This...
- 5/16/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
It might have been a few decades since you left school. You might imagine the modern classroom — especially one in a decently funded, mid-sized German high school — to be as alien to your own educational background as to be unrecognizable. And yet one of the remarkable aspects of İlker Çatak’s highly effective, slow-cooker drama is a strangely specific familiarity. It delivers you directly into a sense memory of chalk dust and boredom, of fidgeting at your desk and gazing longingly through big windows that seem tauntingly designed for exactly that purpose. “The Teachers’ Lounge” is about a lot of things — conformity, rebellion, racism, optics, intergenerational mistrust — but it is also a stark reminder, from both the teacher and the student side, of what school actually was for so many of us: our first and most foundational experience of institutionalization.
The pupils in this particular seventh grade are already, as the film begins,...
The pupils in this particular seventh grade are already, as the film begins,...
- 3/11/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
İlker Çatak’s The Teachers‘ Lounge, a German drama set in a primary school, has won the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European film in the Panorama section of the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival.
Leonie Benesch (Babylon Berlin, Around the World in 80 Days) stars in The Teacher’s Lounge as an idealistic and ambitious young teacher who finds herself at odds with fellow teachers, parents and an inflexible and frustrating bureaucracy. Leonard Stettnisch, Eva Löbau, Michael Klammer, Anne-Kathrin Gummich, Kathrin Wehlisch, Uygar Tamer, and Özgür Karadeniz co-star.
“The film explores key subjects like the prevalence of bureaucracy in schools and issues of race and class, but above all it is a compelling rollercoaster of a drama,” the Europa Cinemas jury said in a statement.
The Europa Cinemas prize is backed the Europa Cinemas theatre network, an association of independent theater owners, representing more than 3,000 screens in over 700 cities across Europe,...
Leonie Benesch (Babylon Berlin, Around the World in 80 Days) stars in The Teacher’s Lounge as an idealistic and ambitious young teacher who finds herself at odds with fellow teachers, parents and an inflexible and frustrating bureaucracy. Leonard Stettnisch, Eva Löbau, Michael Klammer, Anne-Kathrin Gummich, Kathrin Wehlisch, Uygar Tamer, and Özgür Karadeniz co-star.
“The film explores key subjects like the prevalence of bureaucracy in schools and issues of race and class, but above all it is a compelling rollercoaster of a drama,” the Europa Cinemas jury said in a statement.
The Europa Cinemas prize is backed the Europa Cinemas theatre network, an association of independent theater owners, representing more than 3,000 screens in over 700 cities across Europe,...
- 2/25/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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