Film Archive

The Teacher

Official Selection - Competition 2016 / Učiteľka / Slovak Republic, Czech Republic 2016

The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting after it’s alleged that the seemingly empathetic and kindly-looking teacher Mrs. Drazděchová uses her students to manipulate their parents. Although this confidently-directed drama is set in the era of late Czechoslovak Normalization, the multifaceted study of pathological manipulation has universal applicability.

Synopsis

The early 1980s, Czechoslovakia. The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting. Allegations have been made against a seemingly empathetic, kind, and amiable-looking teacher named Mrs. Drazděchová, claiming that she uses her students to manipulate their parents into providing her with minor handyman assistance, unearned material comforts, and even a love affair. Will any of the families oppose the unscrupulous teacher or will her unwritten system continue to hold sway? Featuring a snappy script, masterful performances, and assured direction, the drama presents a multifaceted study of pathological manipulation. The picture can be read as a bold contribution to the debate about the monstrosities that warped Czechoslovak society in the Normalization era, or about the post-revolution period, tainted by communism, that allowed the mechanisms of the past to take firm root. But the story, of course, has a universal application – the corrosive force of power, corruption, and human calculation hardly respects the limitations of time and space.

Martin Horyna

About the film

102 min / Color, DCP
World premiere
Director Jan Hřebejk / Screenplay Petr Jarchovský / Dir. of Photography Martin Žiaran / Music Michal Novinski / Editor Vladimír Barák / Art Director Juraj Fábry / Producer Tibor Búza, Zuzana Mistríková, Ľubica Orechovská, Ondřej Zima, Jan Prušinovský / Production PubRes / Coproduction Rozhlas a televízia Slovenska, Offside Men, Česká televize / Cast Zuzana Mauréry, Csongor Kassai, Zuzana Konečná, Tamara Fischer, Martin Havelka / Sales LevelK / Contact Offside Men / Distributor A-Company Czech s.r.o.

About the director

Jan Hřebejk (b. 1967, Prague) is one of the Czech Republic’s most prolific and versatile film directors. He has also directed for the stage since 1997 (one of his most talked-about productions was Bullets over Broadway). His debut Big Beat (1993) won the very first Czech Lion Awards for Best Picture and Best Direction. Cosy Dens, which competed at KVIFF in 1999, and Pupendo (2003) feature among the biggest hits of post-revolution Czech cinema. Hřebejk was nominated for an Academy Award for the war tragicomedy Divided We Fall (2000), and received another Czech Lion for Best Director. Since filming Kawasaki’s Rose (2009), he has opted for more weighty moral and social themes. Two of his films have been in the main competition at Karlovy Vary in the past decade: Beauty in Trouble (2006, Special Jury Prize) and Honeymoon (2013, Best Director).