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7:00 PM

Haus-Kino: The Edukators

Film Screening|Against it! - Indignation, protest and resistance in film

Hans Weingartner’s feature film “The Edukators” has become a cult classic. Photo (detail): © picture alliance/Everett Collection

Hans Weingartner’s feature film “The Edukators” has become a cult classic. Photo (detail): © picture alliance/Everett Collection

Germany/Austria, 2004, 129 min. 
Director: Hans Weingartner
With: Daniel Brühl, Julia Jentsch, Stipe Erceg, Burghart Klaußner

In their mid-twenties, Jan and Peter live together and share a blue VW bus as well as a deep-seated passion about social injustice in the world. It is not enough for them to distribute flyers at demonstrations; they need action and roam through the streets of the filthy rich at night, seeking to teach them a lesson. They don′t steal anything, but break into empty houses and leave behind creative chaos, underscored by such scribbled slogans as "the days of plenty are numbered", signed "The Edukators". Peter′s girlfriend Jule has no idea about their nightly forays, but she has serious money problems and is sick and tired of the arrogant customers in the swanky restaurant where she works. When Peter leaves town for a while, Jan helps her to renovate her flat, a deed not without consequences. They are attracted to each other and Jan tells her about the break-ins. Jule immediately wants to join in the activist fun and the two of them force their way into the home of a top manager to whom Jule is heavily in debt after a car accident she caused. He catches them by surprise and recognizes Jule. The "Edukators" have no plan for this situation and suddenly find themselves turning into kidnappers… - www.filmportal.de

Awards & Festivals: 
"The Edukators", Hans Weingartner’s second feature film, was selected for competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, the first German-language film in this section since eleven years.
The film then was - amongst others - awarded Best Feature Film by the German Film Critics Association in 2004, Young German Cinema Award at the Munich Film Festival in 2004, and received the German Film Award in Silver in 2005. 

The film series "Against it! -  Indignation, protest and resistance in film" is presented by the Goethe-Institut Montreal in collaboration with students from Collège Maisonneuve. The donations collected at these screenings will be used to fund a trip for students to Berlin as part of the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2026.