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| Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom Photo: Courtesy of London Film Festival |
Luana: A Yak In The Classroom, BBC iPlayer
This sweet-centred drama became the first film from Bhutan to reach the Oscars short-list, although it took two attempts since it was disqualified on a technicality the first time around because the country didn't have an Academy approved selection committee. Initially a fish-out-of-water tale about a young schoolmaster (Sherab Dorji) who finds himself posted to a remote mountain village, it also becomes a warm-hearted tale of inspirational teaching. Writer/director Pawo Choyning Dorji is careful not to lay on the drama too thickly allowing his films to build slowly so that this quiet charmer - complete with yak, as promised - gains increasing emotional resonance.
Young Plato, Amazon Prime
Fiction film writers would be hard pressed to come up with a teacher as inspiration as real-life headmaster Kevin McArevey. Within the walls of Holy Cross Boys Primary School in Ardoyne, Belfast, he uses philosophical concepts to challenge their approach to life and other people - especially pertinent as they are living with the legacy of The Troubles. McArevey is a bundle of positive energy as he firmly tackles everything from inclusivity and anxiety to anger management, while remembering the learning should be fun. Declan McGrath and Neasa Ní Chianáin’s hopeful, heartening film that suggests adults have as much to learn from their children as they have to teach them.
Dead Poets Society, Disney+
Robin Williams’ English Professor John Keating is like a breath of fresh air for the kids at a stuffy boarding school in Peter Weir’s moving drama. Keating motivates his students, especially Todd (Ethan Hawke) and Neil (Robert Sean Leonard - who are under pressure to perform from their parents - to embrace spontaneity. A coming-of-age classic whose finale has lost none of its impact with the passing of the years and is likely to re-inspire you to seize the day.
Radical, for rent on Sky Store and Amazon
This spiritual descendant of Dead Poets Society focuses on an inspirational teacher in a very different sort of school. Sergio Juarez Correa (Eugenio Derbez) heads to a post in a neglected border town and decides that his methods are going to be anything but textbook. Rather than stick to the rules, he tries to engage his cohort of 12-year-olds with roleplay that encourages their critical thinking. As some of the children respond, Christopher Zalla keeps one eye on realism, noting that triumphing against the odds may not be as easy as many films suggest. Make sure you’ve got some hankies left over after watching Peter Weir’s classic because you’ll certainly need them for this.
School Of Rock, Paramount+, 4onDemand
Jack Black stars in this feel-good tale of classroom motivation as Dewey and out-of-work guitarist who blags a teaching job by pretending to be his roommate. Although he doesn’t intend to be inspirational, he soon finds himself introducing the kids to the “awesome power of rock” and entering them into a band competition. Black has a ball in the central role, blasted along by a great soundtrack, and you will too. A heartwarming charmer that works for the whole family.
The Class, Curzon
Laurent Cantet’s engrossing Palme d’Or winning hybrid is based on the book Between The Walls by François Bégaudeau, which charted his first year of teaching in a French high school. The authenticity of the film’s exploration of the stresses and strains of the classroom is enhanced by the fact that Cantet cast Bégaudeau in the lead role and populated his class with non-professionals. The choice brings a frisson of unpredictability to a film that remains topical in its themes and thought provoking.
The Female Teachers Of The Republic, Netflix
A Goya-winning documentary that shines a light on the pioneering women who championed access to education from 1931 to 1939 during the Spanish Second Republic. As women had the opportunity for the first time to be educated alongside their male counterparts, they strove to promote free public and secular schooling, although many were forced into exile, or worse, by the ensuing rise of the dictatorship. Pilar Pérez Solano builds her film around archival footage and commentary from historians, although these pioneering women are no longer with us there are some eyewitness accounts, which pack the film’s real emotional punch.
