“The Teachers’ Lounge” (Das Lehrerzimmer) is Germany’s candidate for the 2024 Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. It is a drama film directed by İlker Çatak, 39, who co-wrote the script with his childhood friend Johannes Duncker, 40.
İlker Çatak
Çatak was born in Berlin, Germany to Turkish parents. He and Duncker went to school together in Istanbul, Türkiye.
“Our school was actually a pretty good school in Istanbul,” Çatak told Roger Ebert. “We went to the German school in Istanbul and back in our time, there was a series of thefts. We all knew that two boys were actually stealing but nobody wanted to snitch. One day, something happened and three teachers came in and frisked us.”
In 2014, Çatak graduated from Hamburg Media School in Hamburg, Germany. In 2015, his graduation film “Sadakat” (Fidelity) won the Student Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
Directed by Çatak, “Stambul Garden” was released in the U.S. on November 16, 2021. In November 2023, UTA signed him for representation in all areas.
“The Teachers’ Lounge“
On February 18, 2023, “The Teachers’ Lounge” had its world premiere at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival in Berlin. It was also an official selection at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in September 2023 and at the 2023 Busan International Film Festival in Busan, South Korea in October 2023.
The film is set in a contemporary German secondary school. Hamburg native Leonie Benesch, 32, plays the lead character, a teacher named Carla Nowak.
Other teachers begin to complain about having valuable items stolen in their lounge so Carla devises a trap by leaving her wallet in her jacket and setting up her laptop camera to record after she walks out of the room. She returns to find her money missing and potential video evidence implicating another school employee, who is the parent of one of her students.
According to Benesch, the real-life teachers who watched the film had mixed reactions. She told the Los Angeles Times, “Quite a few people were a bit angry with us for portraying the reality of how stressful it was and it’s like ‘No one’s going to be wanting to help us out anymore’ and we’re like ‘Well, we did not try to make an advertisement. It’s a fictional story.'”
2024 Academy Awards
Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, 56, the 2024 Academy Awards will be aired by ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA on March 10, 2024. Directed by Hamish Hamilton, the ceremony will be produced by Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan.
This is the 96th edition of the awards ceremony also known as the Oscars and the fourth time Kimmel is hosting it. The ceremony is annually presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which is based in Beverly Hills, California.
On December 21, 2023, it was announced that “The Teacher’s Lounge” is one of the 15 shortlisted films for the 2024 Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. On January 23, 2024, the official nominees will be revealed.
CONAN Daily 