TEACH

Alex Brendea / Romania / 2019 / International Premiere / 82 min.

synopsis

The personality of a rural Transylvanian math teacher who teaches his students at home and ignores the existing curriculum, tells us not only about the Romanian school system, but also about society there as a whole. The stubborn elder man follows the words of essayist Constantine Noica, who believes that in an ideal school, there should not be any lessons, but rather students should go there to free themselves from the tyranny of learning. The observational portrait documentary monitors the dynamics of the lessons themselves, where, in addition to mathematics, the problem of education itself is addressed and where the teacher acts like a father fi gure.

“I think that if you really want to make something matter within 100 years from now, then you have to educate people first.” A. Brendea

biography

Alex Brendea (1987) makes his directorial debut after ten years of working in Romanian cinematography as a cameraman. In addition to several feature films, he has also shot Dieter Auner's documentary Off the Beaten Track (2010) about herdsmen in northern Transylvania and Anul dragonului (2013) for HBO Europe, which was dedicated to Chinese immigrants in Romania.