There are many absorbing moments in this very thoughtful and compassionate film. He is a well-loved guy nearing retirement at one stage, however, he confesses to feeling despair, back in his 40s, about whether teaching was meaningful for him. He himself is a genial, almost hippyish figure who teaches music – electric guitar and drums – as well as sculpture, art, German and maths. Herr Bachmann presides over a diverse mix of Germans and students from immigrant communities from Turkey, Bulgaria and Russia, and has to teach them all how to get along and how to understand each other’s identities and problems. It is a place that has a footnote in European history for using forced labour to produce munitions during the second world war, with trees planted on the factory roof as camouflage – grisly facts that we see the children learning. M aria Speth’s 217-minute deep-dive documentary won the Silver Bear at this year’s Berlin film festival it shows us the life of a German teacher, Dieter Bachmann, and his lively class of 12- and 13-year-olds at a school in Stadtallendorf near Marburg.
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