Having shown Maria Speth’s features films Madonnas and Daughters over the past two years, we are very pleased to now be able to present a special preview of her latest film, the award winning documentary Mr Bachmann and his Class.
Start of the school day in class 6b at the Georg-Büchner-Gesamtschule in Stadtallendorf. Who is still tired, the teacher Herr Bachmann, asks. More or less everyone it turns out and so everyone lays their heads on the table for two minutes. We immediately see that here school is not about just cramming in knowledge but about creating a space in which the young students feel at home. Director Maria Speth and her small team observed what happened in this particular space over a period of 6 months and distilled it into three compelling cinema hours. For this accomplishment, the film was awarded the Silver Bear (jury prize) and the audience prize at the Berlinale 2021 as well as the prize for best documentary film at the German Film Prize 2021.
Class 6b consists of 19 students between the ages of 9 and 14 many of whom have a migrant background. Stadtallendorf may only be a small town in North Hessia. But after the Nazis produced ammunition here exploiting concentration camp prisoners and forced labourers, new industries established themselves after the Second World War, such as a factory of the Italian company Ferrero and an iron foundry. From the 1960s onwards, the necessary workers have been coming from southern Europe and class 6b reflects this flow of migration. Cultural differences collide here, and not everyone speaks perfect German. But as Speth's sensitive film shows, a classroom can provide the context for addressing and resolving differences and conflicts. And this is where Mr. Bachmann, former folk singer and sculptor, comes in. With unconventional methods, lots of music, persistent questions, humour and a lot of affection, he challenges his students, but also responds to them individually or sometimes just leaves them alone. His students learning to understand each other and themselves seems far more important to him than them getting to grips with maths. Watching this teacher with his woollen hat and a penchant for playing the guitar alongside getting to know his students with all their peculiarities and problems is fascinating and three hours just fly by. Far from presenting a pedagogical manifesto, the film shows that school can not only be good for you, but can also make you feel good, provided it is given sufficient time and dedication.
Germany 2021, colour, 207 min. With English subtitles.
Director: Maria Speth. With Dieter Bachmann, Aynur Bal, Önder Cavdar and the pupils of cass 6b and 6f.
With special thanks to New Wave Film.
Mr Bachmann and His Class will be released in cinemas on 9 December and in London you can catch it at the ICA.
Book Tickets Through Eventbrite
Maria Speth was born in Bavaria, Germany in 1967, but has lived in Berlin since 1987. She worked as an assistant editor and director until 1995. In 1996, she took up a directing degree at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. In 2001, she directed her multi-award-winning debut feature film The Days Between. Her second feature, Madonnas, premiered in the Berlinale Forum and won the 2007 Hessian Film Award. In 2009, she founded the Madonnen Film production company and made her first documentary, 9 Lives, for which she won the Metropolis German Directors Award. Her next feature film Daughters also premiered at the Berlinale Forum in 2014. Her latest film, Mr Bachmann and His Class, is a three-hour documentary that made it into the competition of the Berlinale 2021 and won the Silver Bear Jury Prize.
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