May Screenings (Online)

MR BACHMANN AND HIS CLASS
HERR BACHMANN UND SEINE KLASSE

• Director: Maria Speth
• GERMANY / 2021 / H264 / Colour / 217’ / German; Turkish s.t.

• Screenplay: Maria Speth, Reinhold Vorschneider
• Director of Photography: Reinhold Vorschneider
• Editing: Maria Speth
• Cast: Katılanlar With: Dieter Bachmann, Aynur Bal, Önder Çavdar, 6b ve 6f sınıfı öğrencileri, students of classes 6b and 6f.
• Producer: Maria Speth
• Production Co.: Madonnen Film
• World Sales: Films Boutique

This film is screened within the Documentary Time section.

Theme Sponsor

2021 Berlin Silver Bear–Jury Award

The titular Dieter Bachmann is a teacher at the Georg Büchner School in Stadtallendorf, in middle Germany. Bachmann teaches class 6b, to a group of students consisting of 12- to 14-year-olds from different countries. Bachmann and director Maria Speth have known each other for years, and Speth regards Bachmann as "Someone who does not merely impart knowledge but who involves his full personality with all his weaknesses and strengths. Someone who has no taboos and engages his students without prejudice. Someone who knows that strengthening self-worth can be more important than the Pythagorean theorem;" "but just as Teacher Bachmann offers these young people a chance to develop skills, beauty, and dignity, I wanted to give them the same in my edit: to be stars for 217 minutes." With her Berlinale-award-winning film, Maria Speth not only holds a mirror to contemporary society of Germany, but also to the society of the future through this micro-group that she observes.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.