Drama - Germany

This film deals with the topic ‘School between books and bytes’ and shows different styles of teaching and their impact on the students and the teachers.

In the first film, there is a class writing a test. Some students use laptops, others use pen and paper. Two of the students are cheating, one of them is noting down formulas on her forearm, the other one is copying texts on her computer. In the end, the teacher notices the one cheating by writing formulas on her skin. She gets a bad mark, whereas the other one who cheated as well, gets an excellent mark.

In the second film, there are two different classes. One of them uses laptops, mobile phones, and Ipads. It is quite modern and represents all the students using modern technology. On the first day, the teacher who still uses books for teaching enters the classroom and is confused about the lack of books. The next day she is becoming even more confused because she must realise her inability to operate the technological equipment and the students’ disinterest. On her last day, she hardly greets the students and finally freaks out because the students are not willing to do without their facilities. 

The other class uses books and no technological equipment at all whereas only their teacher uses technical devices. At first he is confused as well because his class doesn’t have books, but later on he just gets annoyed. He can not use the blackboard as he is not used to writing with chalk and doesn't know how to operate an overhead projector. 

After every day the teachers meet in the hallway. They visibly become more and more exhausted and finally bump into each other. They are quite amazed but during their little conversation they figure out they’ve been to the wrong classes and therefore many problems have occured.

The concept of the film: 

“Some day I found a mirror to my world”

This film is about the virtual world in comparison to the world we live in. The appearing and disappearing of the “Doppelganger” makes the protagonist doubt whether she’s real or just a projection in the “cloud”...

The mirror in the smartphone the protagonist finds causes a leap in time to the past. She stumbles across a group of people reading books. The music playing in the background is from the 80s show “Twin Peaks” giving the impression of being in the 80s. A “dark person” appears. Is he the embodiment of the protagonist's secrets and fears? - At first the protagonist does not pay attention to the “dark person”, but in the end she is running away from him. From the “dark person” or from her fears? 

The group with the books does not care about the happenings in the car park in which the protagonist is running away from the “dark person”. Do they not notice her or do they simply not care? Does this show the ignorance of society towards those in need? The movie does not answer these questions... Maybe the low battery offers rescue.

The scenes of the virtual world, which the protagonist enters through the mirror of the found smartphone are contrary to the real world filmed from a central perspective and in a square format. The virtual world is a series of pixels...

The protagonist moves from the left to the right, mirroring the reading habits of our culture. The only exception is the scene at the bridge, which is where she notices the presence of the “dark person”. This is when the reading group makes a circle around her, protecting her while the “dark person” observes what is happening. The protagonist appears to run through the streets of the real world once again, but she is still in the virtual world and now unprotected, she is being followed by the “dark person”. 

The lack of time made it impossible to work more on the ideas of the project group. The filming and the editing was done as professional as possible. This offered the group a closer look into the world of filmmaking. Some of the filming and editing was done by the students themselves. They showed a lot of interest, were mostly able to concentrate on their jobs and had many good ideas.

Jack Hruby, September 2018

The theme of our theatre workshop was quite wide ranged, therefore we had to think for a long time how we could interpret it. In the end we decided to portray it in a rather funny way:

How would fairy tales take place in our digital and modern world?

What would happen if Cinderella does not lose her shoe but her beloved phone?

Supported by Claudia Kreutzer we rewrote five famous fairy tales and practised them to present them on Thursday evening.