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Ruth Beckermann / AT, 2024 / 119 min.

None of the children in Ilkay Idiskut’s class are native German speakers, all needing extra attention. There’s a major shortage of teachers in Vienna. What this means for the children becomes clear when their teacher goes on maternity leave.

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The pupils at the Viennese school where Ilkay Idiskut teaches come from a wide variety of countries. Each child brings their own cultural baggage into the classroom – as we hear, for example, a boy say that girls shouldn’t wear bikinis. Hints of the children’s underlying traumas are revealed through a disturbing drawing or a question about violent child abduction.

The children are each given an iPhone for making videos, offering a glimpse into their personal lives. No matter how different the 25 boys and girls are, they have one thing in common: they are doing their best to learn German. They are not the only ones: more than 60 percent of the children at Viennese primary schools don’t speak German as their first language.

At the same time, there’s a major shortage of teachers. Filmmaker Ruth Beckermann took this tension as her starting point during her three years of filming. And she movingly reveals its impact when Idiskut has to go on maternity leave and there is no replacement.

This is part of

Details

Director

Ruth Beckermann

Production year

2024

Country

AT

Length

119 min.

Language

German

Subtitles

ENG

Format

DCP

Part of

IDFA 2024

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is once again bringing an exciting selection of the world's best documentaries to Eye this year, from November 14 until 24.

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