The Teachers’ Lounge: dir İlker Çatak (2023)

Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is an idealistic new high-school teacher. She seems to have connected with her Year 8 students, who are engaged and eager to learn in her maths class. But something is bubbling underneath the surface, and she’s quickly thrust into a delicate situation when a Turkish boy is suspected of theft. Not convinced of his guilt, Carla takes matters into her own hands and inadvertently starts down a path that soon begins to spiral out of control. As she tries to mediate between students, parents and opinionated colleagues, she is relentlessly confronted with the structures of the school system. Carla is pushed to her limits, and the school becomes a proxy for the cultural and ethical clashes of modern day society …

The Teachers’ Lounge is a study in power dynamics, with themes of truth, justice, racism, respect, and children’s rights that demonstrate how individuals are worn down between entrenched positions. Playing out like a thriller, the film expertly explores the fault lines of contemporary society; the award-winning German writer-director İlker Çatak has produced a brilliantly observed drama that was deservedly nominated for an Oscar and is a favourite on the festival circuit.