The Teachers' Lounge

In recent years, weve all seen examples of incidents that start out comparatively small but that quickly get blown all out of proportion and unreasonably so at that. As developments emerge and explode under these conditions, they often lose all sense of rationality and soon take on lives of their own, expanding into tangential and seemingly unrelated areas that have virtually nothing to do with the event that spawned them. And, in the end, were left with outcomes that seem inappropriate and ill-suited to what launched these insane scenarios in the fist place. Thats what writer-director Ilker Çatak explores in his latest offering, a dramatic satire about what unexpectedly grows out of a case of petty theft in the teachers lounge at a German...

German drama film directed by İlker Çatak, and that is nominated for best international movie for the 96th Academy Awards.

Leonie Benesch as Carla Nowak, and idealist Polish immigrant teacher have a suspicion of theft at her 1st grade school raised by one of the student towards another (immigrant Turk) student.

After this incident and the reunion with the father of the boys she withstands another small theft at the teacher lounge, and after that she decides to mount a trap to confirm her suspicions putting her coat with the wallet and some money and laptop to film. The money is stolen but only the sleeve of the robber is seen - the sleeve with a unique painting that another functionary on the teacher lounge uses, and she aboard her (t...

There's a spate of petty thefts going on in her junior school, so after a rather dubiously executed class search fails to deliver a culprit, the enthusiastic and maybe a little naive teacher "Miss Novak" (Leonie Benesch) sets a video trap to see if she can identify the culprit. She does, potentially, identify someone going through her pockets and headmaster "Böhm" (Anne-Katrin Gummich) now tries to deal with a scenario that rapidly spirals out of control and reveals an increasing degree of toxicity for not just this teacher, but for relationships at all levels throughout the school - as well as a fairly counter-productive environment of red-tape. We are soon facing a stand-off situation that borders on the criminal with some surprisingly po...

A warning: This movie is all about the journey. There is no payoff in the end so don't stick around hoping for a nice tidy conclusion. Instead, you will feel the same frustration as the teacher does which I think is exactly what the director was going for in this movie.

Having that out of the way, the basic premise is a school dealing with a thief. The main character (a teacher) gets strong evidence but not conclusive proof as to who the thief is. Mayhem then ensues as the teacher's life spirals out of control.