Favoriten

“Beid, Hafsa, Melissa, Manessa, Mohammad… 25 children and their dedicated teacher. We wanted to find out who they are and become familiar with their skills and strategies, their joys, fears and hardships,” says director Ruth Beckermann. More than 60 percent of all children in Viennese primary schools do not speak German as their first language. At the same time, there is an acute shortage of teachers and supervisors. Such adverse conditions are the starting point of Ruth Beckermann’s documentary Favoriten, for which the Austrian filmmaker of The Waldheim Waltz and Mutzenbacher followed a Viennese primary school class for three years. The result is an astonishingly cheerful portrait of an unusual community. A film about teaching and learning and the often very surprising experiences somewhere in between. (Berlinale)