User Reviews

I saw this premiere at the Austin Film Festival and it was a really heartwarming documentary and discussion about the state of the high school system in Germany, which tests students on their ability to memorize facts and equations without true comprehension of the material. It follows a class of former high school dropouts/suspendees as they navigate their way through Berlin's "Rebel High School" that is manned by a group of progressive, thoughtful and truly remarkable teachers that have themselves taken issue with traditional teaching methods and the education system. Klaus in particular is the type of teacher, mentor and friend we all could only dream of having. I have tears in my eyes just thinking back to how heartfelt his messages were, and how much he cared about setting up his students for success. These teachers work for modest wages (even by Berlin standards) in a system that isn't perfect, but that they care deeply about and as such, have stuck around for decades. The film follows a class of students from their debut into the school system through to the day of the final grade. Watching the metamorphosis of students like Hanil, especially, put a tear in my eye - and I wasn't the only one in the audience who loved seeing him transform from lazy and unmotivated to confident, focused and capable. What especially stood out to me in this debut film was the camera work (the drone footage of Berlin was outstanding), the original music and the title sequences. Really well done, and hope to see more from this emerging filmmaker!

This is a well-made fly-on-the-wall documentary that follows the lives of a bunch of young reprobates living in Berlin. Their common denominator is that they attend the private school SFE (Schule für Erwachsenenbildung, "school for adult education"), referred to in this movie by its way cooler moniker, "Berlin Rebel School". There are several schools like this, offering a second chance to those who dropped out of the state school system and are over the age for secondary education. The others are probably not as cool as this one, which looks like it's set inside an occupied bunker, decorated by Keith Haring on LSD, and run by the Doobie Brothers. The movie narrates the story of the kids in a sympathetic and easy to follow manner.

Unfortunately, we get to know relatively little about the school itself. The students have to pay a moderate tuition of €148 per month, while the staff have to scrape by on the meagre (and uniform) minimal wage of €12,50 per hour. Decisions are made by the school parliament, i. e. by students and employees together. Since it is a school for adults, attendance is voluntary, we see students and faculty consume copious amounts of cigarettes, beer and oftentimes joints, and there are no grades -- EXCEPT for when you want to leave the school with more than a warm handshake, in which case the students need to pass regular state examinations in a dreaded regular school.

There are many interesting questions which the film doesn't address. First and foremost, why do students, who managed to get themselves kicked out of sometimes 10 schools in a row, cope so much better in this school? Is it really just the laid-back attitude? And how do the students get by financially -- do they have to rely on wealthy parents to subsidise their tuition, room and board in Berlin?