Oscars: Germany Submits SPC-Acquired ‘The Teachers’ Lounge’ For Best International Film Category
Ilker Çatak’s drama The Teachers’ Lounge will represent Germany in the Best International Film Category at the 2024 Oscars.
The drama stars Leonie Benesch as a young and dedicated sports and math teacher who starts her first job full of idealism. Her life and career starts to unravel when a student of Turkish origin is accused of a series of thefts and she decides to get to the bottom of the matter.
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This quest for the truth sets in motion a spiralling chain of events that sees her coming under attack from outraged parents, opinionated colleagues and aggressive students.
The film’s selection as Germany’s Oscar entry was made by a nine-member jury appointed by various associations working within the German film industry.
Thirteen films submitted for consideration were screened by the jury in Munich on August 22 and 23.
“By nominating The Teachers’ Lounge, the jury has chosen a highly topical, universal feature film that is impossible to resist,” said jury spokesperson Torsten Koch (Constantin Film, German Distributors Association).
“Ilker Çatak takes the microcosm of a school as the setting for social processes of erosion in the post-factual age. Çatak is masterful in the way he stages his precisely written story as a breakdown in understanding.”
Sony Pictures Classics acquired the film for North and Latin America as well as for Eastern Europe (excluding Hungary) in March, following its award-winning debut at the Berlin Film Festival.
The film is set to continue its festival run with screenings set for Toronto, Haifa, Busan, Gent and Valladolid among others.
The film has also won several awards, including five at the German Film Awards with the Lola in Gold for Best Feature Film, as well as the Europa Cinemas Label at the Berlinale for Best European Film in the Panorama section and the CICAE Arthouse Cinema Award.
It has also been shortlisted for the European Film Award.
The feature was produced by if…Productions Film in co-production with ZDF and ARTE and supported by BKM, MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein as well as the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) and the German Federal Film Board (FFA).
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