On the outskirts of Paris, an elementary school is threatened by the imminent completion of a new educational establishment. The desire to save the school is the starting point for a story of unity, resilience and how ecology is much more than hugging trees.
The Jacques Prévert school, located on the outskirts of Paris, needs help. Students sit in chairs that are no longer big enough for them, there are no blackboards in the classrooms, teachers are demotivated, and no one from the center of Paris would even consider having their children study there.
A chain of causation that only gets worse with the imminent construction of a school nearby, which is modern, attractive and has few emigrants and many Parisians.
That’s the starting point for “SOS: Save Our School”, a French film distributed by Zero em Comportamentoand which didn’t go unnoticed at the Cannes Film Festival and the French Film Festival in 2022.
A group of teachers with no desire to do anything different are joined by Marion, a young teacher who, in her first week on the job, does what has never been done before: she takes the children out of the classroom and into a green space near the school. They learn to count with acorns, take an interest in reading with books on the theme of nature and, above all, make contact with the outdoors in a harmonious way of limitless discovery.
This different way of teaching arouses the curiosity of the principal, who sees the possibility of being the first ecological public school in the city as an attraction for more parents to choose it for their children. Whether they succeed or not is not the most important thing. The process up to that point is what matters, as a lesson in sharing, unity, resourcefulness and the desire to do more.
Carine May and Hakim Zouhani, the directors, born and raised in Aubervilliers, were inspired by their city, which they often portray in their films, and through which they have made their mark in dramatic comedy with insightful portraits of modern working-class neighborhoods.
“In this particular movie, we wanted to tackle the issue of school mapping. The authorities tell us that by having a larger metropolitan area, Paris and its suburbs would be on an equal footing. However, the arrival of the upper middle classes in poorer suburban towns (Aubervilliers being one of them) often brings openly segregationist educational policies, with school zones that consciously avoid the mixing of rich children with poorer classmates,” they explained in an interview with Zero em Comportamento.
In Portugal, the film opens on April 11 at Cinema City Alvalade, Leiria and Setúbal.
You can watch the trailer below:
Marta Cerqueira is from Minho and a vegetarian. Luckily, she lives in Lisbon, where there is more tofu than sarrabulho. She has been a journalist for over 15 years, the last of which writing about food and sustainability. Now, out of the newsroom, she continues to write whenever she can, be it in magazines, journals, post its, or on her Instagram page, which she uses to share a life divided between being a mom-person-foodie-traveler. Still, she created Peggada so she could write about what doesn't fit in a magazine, journal, post it or Instagram: a better world.
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