The Teachers’ Lounge is a film by Ilker Catak, a German director of Turkish origin, and it’s an Oscar contender in the Best International Feature category. It’s a story about Carla Nowak, a school teacher trying to catch a thief who steals money from teachers and kids. However, despite her good intentions, Nowak only makes the situation worse.

The Village Ukraine editor Oleksii Morozov had a chance to see the film ahead of its Ukrainian premiere and record a short interview with the film’s director Ilker Catak. Below, Catak explains why The Teachers’ Lounge is a story about democracy and German prejudices, and the reason it was important for the film to have a Polish protagonist.

The Teacher’s Lounge trailer

Це інтерв’ю можна прочитати українською 

The Teachers’ Lounge is a story about democracy and society in miniature

I went to school with [my co-author for] The Teachers’ Lounge Johannes Duncker. It was a German school in Istanbul. One day, three teachers came into the classroom and asked us to put our wallets on the table. They asked the girls to leave the room. And everyone just did that. We didn’t question what was happening. We knew that there were two thefts in our class, but we didn’t want to, you know, snitch on our classmates. Those boys got caught. But the process was very dubious. Back then there were no WhatsApp groups or other messengers, and we had no student rights.

When we started writing the script, we gave it to a lot of educators to double-check, and they said that this is what happens on an everyday basis, though it’s not supposed to happen. But the only way you can conduct this kind of procedure is by telling students that this is voluntary. That moment we thought: “This is actually great.” Because it’s like politicians saying “Your privacy is in good hands. If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to fear.” And you start seeing a bigger picture. Almost instantly we realized that once you make a film about school, you also make a film about society. Those teachers are like politicians.

Of course, this film is about democracy, and it’s about how if we don’t take action and take care, then these tendencies will go further and will at some point become totalitarian. The reason why, I think, this film ends with a boy on the shoulders of a policeman is because he says “No”. And there is a great power in saying no. We live in a democracy, it’s because at some point someone said “No” to the hierarchy. And that’s why this kid is like a king. It’s actually about democracy, yes. About how we need to be really cautious about this whole political nonsense that politicians peddle: “Law and order”, “Zero tolerance”, “Surveillance”, all that kind of shit. We ought to be aware of the fact that we have rights, and we should protect them by saying no and not playing along.

Carla Nowak as Walter White from Breaking Bad

We always thought that it’s great when you have a character that you immediately love; someone who is good with children, focused on the job, and loves what she is doing. But then, all of sudden, you start to realize that she is kind of stubborn and taking actions that are quite dubious. I mean, I understand why she’s taking them, but it’s not okay. I love these kinds of films where a character does something good, but things are getting messy. One of my favorite shows of all time is Breaking Bad, where you have this dad who has a disabled son and is trying to provide for his family, and he just goes down that road. He kind of stumbles into it. All of a sudden, you realize that the person who was so cool and nice actually can be quite a dick. 

Circumstances made Carla Nowak like that. It’s not that she wants to be like that, the others are also fucked up. There’s a saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Good intentions aren’t always good. It’s okay to have them, but you have to think about consequences, you can’t just take action and think: “Oh, I meant well.” The world doesn’t work like that. She is taking action because her students are being accused, and she is sensing some sort of racism in there. I did try to make her take action based on a particular motivation, not just to set up a trap for her.

German prejudices and the importance of Carla Nowak being Polish

I remember once I was working with an actress, she was Turkish. I know that her Turkish is impeccable, she speaks perfect Turkish. But whenever I spoke Turkish to her, she always responded in German. At first I thought that she was doing that because there were other people around, but then I spoke to her privately in Turkish and even then she spoke German to me. And I thought: “Why is she doing that?” When we started thinking about the main character Carla, at first I thought that she may be Turkish. 

But then I thought that it’s too close to me. Then somebody said that there is horrible prejudice among German people that all Polish people are thieves. Especially in Berlin and Brandenburg, which are close to Poland. Whenever a car is stolen, they always say: “Oh, right. It’s already in Poland.” This is something deeply rooted as a prejudice in Germany, and Carla is very much aware of that. So in The Teachers’ Lounge we have thefts going on at the school and then you have a Polish person in the middle of this. So I thought, what if it’s not her? But also a colleague is trying to speak Polish to her and she is kind of trying to hide her identity. She’s trying to be German. But she doesn’t speak it out. I like to treat these subjects in a movie in a subtle way. It’s up to the audience to think why those things are happening.

I grew up in Germany as a Turkish kid. And I remember how I also tried to hide my identity. I was speaking sophisticated language just to show them: “Look, I am one of you.” All these kinds of identity issues I dealt with my whole life, they got into that character. I tried to do it in a subtle way. On top of that, I read about this one Polish-German writer, Margarete Stokowski. Her first novel was a story of her growing up in Germany as a Pole, and when I read it I knew: “This is Carla Nowak.”

Who is in the right in The Teachers’ Lounge? (Spoiler alert: No one and everyone at the same time)

The audience will take sides regardless of what I want. It’s very human to take sides, but of course I put a lot of thought into the argument about whose side  you’re gonna be on. We are with Carla at the beginning of the story, but then I wanted to kind of unsettle the audience, saying: “Look, this woman – Friederike Kuhn – who you think is guilty, she’s protecting herself. She’s taking a stance in front of parents, saying that she’s innocent.” I told the actress Eva Lobau, who played Mrs Kuhn, that I want her to play this as if she’s really innocent. This is great stuff, when you get confronted by your own prejudices and judgments. I like to watch films where the director isn’t dividing things into black and white, good and bad. Cinema is a place where we can all make up our own minds, a space where we are given an opportunity to interpret things.

It’s hard to be on everyone’s side, especially when you have that many people in your ensemble. You cannot empathize with all of them, but at least I tried. Of course, I understand everything Carla is doing, I even understand a little bully like Toms, because I was like that in my time – I was a little pain in the ass for my teachers. So I have empathy for all of them, but first and foremost I am on Carla’s side, and on Oskar’s side as well. He is like this prodigy kid that is actually a very good chess player. He’s not an antagonist, but he’s like a counterpart, an opponent. It’s a chess game. They all have their motivations and the kid is just trying to protect his mom. That’s why I also take his side. I can even understand the [school principal]. She’s saying that it’s “law and order”, but she’s actually reproducing something that somebody else said. I’m taking everyone’s side, kind of. I don’t judge my characters.

It’s also a bit of a comedy for me. I know that people don’t see it as a comedy, but for me there is a lot of humor in it.

The school newspaper and its part in The Teachers’ Lounge

We’re having a crisis with newspapers, I think. There is pressure for every newspaper to create clicks and generate attention. That’s why complex stories are reduced to scandalous headlines. This is a big problem. For instance, when I speak to journalists today I always ask my PR-agent: “Is this a person to be cautious of?” Because I’ve seen it so many times – you say something and they just [make it into a provocative] headline. And people don’t read the whole article, even if it’s complex and brings justice to what you are saying. People just read the headline and the text below. 

This is a problem of our attention span, and newspapers are acting on it. Even though I understand those young people in The Teachers’ Lounge, Greta Thunberg has a point too, but it makes no sense to go to a museum and spill some paint on a painting. It’s about being loud and saying: “You guys aren’t listening, so I will make you listen.” It’s the hysteria of our time and it gets exponential with social media. They are right, but they’re not – that’s the issue.

The Teachers’ Lounge is like food in a pressure-cooker

I wanted to make a film that is like a pressure-cooker, to put pressure on characters. I thought that we shouldn’t go to Carla’s private life to understand who she is. You reveal the character of a person when they have to make decisions under pressure. So one of our goals was to create pressure and find a format that would contribute to this claustrophobic feeling. Then I thought, if there’s not a conflict in a scene, then I don’t need it. So there is a conflict in every scene. In the editing room we cut the excess to keep the pressure mounting. The music was the final element that made it a whole. But I never had a masterplan or something like that, my focus was always on creating a precise dynamic between the characters. Everything else was just to make sure our audience was not bored. My attention span is also very low, unfortunately. So I wanted to make a film that dives into the action from the first second. You can actually see this in the first scene where Carla is speaking on the phone, then somebody knocks on her door and hurries her to go, she takes a sip of her drink, can’t find a piece of paper so writes something down on her hand, and has to rush out.