CLOSING FILM: The Silent Revolution (Das schweigende Klassenzimmer)
Sunday, November 4, 7 pm
Germany, 2017, 111 min., Director: Lars Kraume, Screenplay: Lars Kraume (adapted from the book by Dietrich Garstka)
Cast: Leonard Scheicher, Tom Gramenz, Lena Klenke, Jonas Dassler, Ronald Zehrfeld, Florian Lukas, Jördis Triebel, Michael Gwisdek, Burghart Klaußner, Distribution: Studiocanal
- Bavarian Film Prize 2017 (Best Newcomer Actor: Jonas Dassler)
Discussion with producer Miriam Düssel, moderated by Sky Sitney, follows the screening.
1956. During a visit to a cinema in West Berlin, East German high school pupils Theo and Kurt see disturbing newsreel footage of the Hungarian Uprising, in which thousands of young protesters were violently suppressed in the streets of Budapest. Back in Stalinstadt, one of the GDR’s flagship workers’ settlements, Theo and Kurt propose holding a minute’s silence in class for the victims of the Hungarian struggle for freedom. No one is prepared, however, for the reaction that this expression of solidarity incites. Although the school principal tries to diffuse the incident and deal with it internally, the pupils find themselves snared in the political machinery of a state determined to make an example of them. Condemning their act as counter-revolutionary, the education minister demands that the pupils name their ringleaders. All involved are faced with a decision that has dramatic consequences.
Lars Kraume was born in 1973 in Chieri, Italy, and grew up in Frankfurt am Main. He worked as a freelance photographer before enrolling at the German Film & Television Academy in Berlin (DFFB) in 1994. Since then he has worked as a director, writer, and producer. In addition to numerous episodes of the television series Tatort, his films include: Dunckel (1998), Der Mörder meiner Mütter (TV, 1999), Viktor Vogel - Commercial Man (2001), Kismet (2002), No Songs of Love (2005), Der Elefant (TV series, 2005), Guten Morgen Herr Grothe (TV, 2007), The Days to Come (2010), Meine Schwestern (2011), Familienfest (2015), The People vs. Fritz Bauer (2015), The Verdict (TV, 2016), and The Silent Revolution (2018).
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