Arquivo

The director Ruth Beckermann spent three years following a class of primary school pupils, from the ages of seven to ten, and their devoted teacher at a large primary school in Vienna’s ethnically diverse, traditionally workingclass district Favoriten. More than sixty percent of pupils in Viennese primary schools do not have German as their first language, and the system faces an acute shortage of teachers. We get to know the children as individuals as they learn, grow and develop through the period leading up to their final year of primary school and experience with them this critical time that will have such a decisive impact on their futures. The documentary made the classmates co-authors of the film, handing cameras to them and incorporating the footage shot by the pupils themselves. We experience the daily adventures, struggles, defeats and victories of childhood, and see a microcosm of contemporary western European society: a society struggling with issues of identity and migration.

Presented at the Berlin International Film Festival, where received the Peace Film Prize, and at the CPH:DOX and Visions du Réel film festivals.