Balnearios

An album of odd and humorous stories on small places exclusively dedicated to idleness, which are empty in winter and crowded in summer: the spa towns. Cities under water, luxury hotels, mermaids, sea animals, sand castles, people who worship water, praying for health.

To Be and to Have

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

L'école en actes

Mauvaises filles

Disobedients, rebels, misunderstoods or simply unpopulars. As many other french women, Édith, Michèle, Éveline and Fabianne had been put in a juvenile detention center during their teenage years. Nowadays, with an incredible strength, each of them relate their story, and unveil the deeply moving fate lived by these « bad girls » until the late 70's.

Waiting for "Superman"

Gripping, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful, Waiting for Superman is an impassioned indictment of the American school system from An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim.

Summer 2024, a TSW story

Let the Child Be the Guide

As a young father, watching his daughter go through her life experiences, film director Alexandre Mourot discovered the Montessori approach and decided to set his camera up in a children's house (3 to 6 years of age) in the oldest Montessori school in France. Alexandre was warmly welcomed in a surprisingly calm and peaceful environment, filled with flowers, fruits and Montessori materials. He met happy children, who were free to move about, working alone or in small groups. The teacher remained very discreet. Some children were reading, others were making bread, doing division, laughing or sleeping. The children guided the film director throughout the whole school year, helping him to understand the magic of their autonomy and self-esteem - the seeds of a new society of peace and freedom, which Maria Montessori dedicated her life work to.

L'été des 20 bougies

First Case, Second Case

First Case, Second Case is a documentary about a teacher who sends a group of pupils out of the classroom when one of them does not own up to talking behind the master's back.

Queerkamp

It takes courage to be a queer teenager at an LGBTQIA+ youth summer camp. Along with 65 other queer youngsters, Faas, Fano, Jeroen, and Finley are on their first summer camp, spending five intensive days of workshops that teach them how they can love themselves more. For the first time in their lives, the youths are surrounded by peers, all struggling with the same problems and feelings. As different as they are, they all share one thing: the need for contact and understanding. Mutual recognition of each other’s childhood or coming-out stories stirs up more emotions than they may have thought. Will this help them get closer to each other and eventually themselves?

Happy Winter

Every summer on Mondello Beach in Palermo, more than a thousand cabins are erected to house the same number of groups of bathers who will spend the season in them. For these people the “huts” are the perfect setting in which to hide behind the memory of a social status that the crisis of recent years has undermined. A family gets into debt to go on a seaside vacation and to look well-off among the bathers, three women sunbathe in order to feel as if they are still young and to become the stars of the summer, while on the same beach a barman thinks about earning as much money as possible to get through the winter. Everyone is waiting for the night of August 15 to play a leading role in the summer Vanity Fair and to keep on pretending that the economic crisis doesn’t exist.

They Just Come and Go

The film follows morning events at Bacvice beach. At dawn, before sunrise, the beach becomes a place of an unusual clash. From nearby clubs and cafes, numerous groups of young people cross the beach on their way home. At the same time, older people start coming. They walk, come, pass by and go.

The ABCs of Book Banning

In recent years, more than 2,500 books have been removed from school districts around the US, labeled as banned, restricted, or challenged, and made unavailable to millions of students. By no accident, the themes targeted are the usual scapegoats of the American Right—LGBTQ+ issues, Black History, and women’s empowerment—impeding the power of future generations to develop their own thoughts and opinions on critical social issues. By weaving together a lyrical montage of young readers and authors, THE ABCs OF BOOK BANNING reveals the voices of the impacted parties, and inspires hope for the future through the profound insights of inquisitive youthful minds.

On the Way to School

One year in the life of a Turkish teacher, teaching the Turkish language to Kurdish children in a remote village in Turkey. The children can't speak Turkish, the teacher can't speak Kurdish and is forced to become an exile in his own country. On the Way to School is a film about a Turkish teacher who is alone in a village as an authority of the state, and about his interaction with the Kurdish children who have to learn Turkish. The film witnesses the communication problem emphasizing the loneliness of a teacher in a different community and culture; and the changes brought up by his presence into this different community during one year. The film chronicles one school year, starting from September 2007 until the departure of the teacher for summer holiday in June 2008. During this period, they begin to know and understand each other mutually and slowly.

Chronicle of a Summer

Paris, summer 1960. Anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist and film critic Edgar Morin wander through the crowded streets asking passersby how they cope with life's misfortunes.

Vikarien

For the young, ambitious substitute teacher Max Wejstorp the chaos in his school in a Stockholm suburb ultimately becomes unbearable. He summons his old teacher and mentor, the now 73-year-old legend Folke Silvén from Lund in southern Sweden. How the teachers has got an increasingly untenable work situation is shown in a very direct way in "Vikarien".