The Chosen (TV Movie)

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Movie
Original title The chosen ones
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2014
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Christoph Röhl
script Sylvia Leuker ,
Benedikt Röskau
production Hans-Hinrich Koch
music Ali N. Askin
camera Peter Steuger
cut Vessela Martschewski ,
Bernd Schriever
occupation

The Chosen is a German TV film by Christoph Röhl from 2014 . The film drama was on the Munich Film Festival premiere and 2014 for the first time on October 1, 2014 First aired. The film depicts the martyrdom of the students who suffer from the sexual abuse of their teachers at the Odenwald School and who only find a public hearing years later.

action

At the end of the 1970s, 29-year-old Petra Grust enthusiastically takes up her position as a biology teacher at the Odenwald School (OSO), the legendary model institution of reform education. She honors the trust of the charismatic and famous headmaster Simon Pistorius. But everyday boarding school life is irritating. Students and teachers of both sexes use the same showers, young students drink alcohol and smoke, and one colleague even has a relationship with an underage student.

Petra becomes aware of 13-year-old Frank Hoffmann, who looks disturbed and obviously has problems. She takes care of him, but does not find out what is wrong with him. Over time she has a terrible suspicion: She sees a teacher with a naked boy in the forest; she sees Pistorius leaving a shower under which a desperate Frank is crouching. Petra asks. But her colleagues don't want to know about any of this.

Frank's best friend Erik is also abused by Pistorius. When he tells his mother about it, he has to leave school and is believed to be in possession of drugs as the reason. Frank is desperate. When he learns that he should even spend the holidays with Pistorius, he threatens to commit suicide. Petra understands more and more what Pistorius is doing to him. But Frank's father Helmut, chairman of the school's sponsoring association, prefers to believe the seemingly impeccable headmaster than his son and the young teacher. Petra asks her friend, a journalist, to research the famous reform pedagogue. But she is ultimately powerless against Pistorius' network of relationships in the highest circles. The attempt to bring an article about the abuse in the newspaper fails in advance. However, Frank's father is finally becoming aware of his son's real problems. He confronts Pistorius and has to hear from him that he has outdated morals. But Helmut Hoffmann does not allow himself to be “wrapped up” by Pistorius and threatens him with consequences. He then announced his resignation, which outraged the teaching staff so much that they blame Petra for it and she also leaves the Odenwald School.

30 years later, Frank and Petra meet again. She never worked as a teacher again. Like the other traumatized abuse victims, Frank has not been able to talk about the crimes for so long that all acts are statute-barred. But he no longer wants to accept the years of silence from teachers, parents, politicians and institutions. After the suicide of a former classmate, he organized a hearing and information event at the Odenwald School. Together with other victims, he speaks for the first time in public in front of former students and parents. But even here, the allegations against Pistorius are initially met with incomprehension on the part of the audience. Only when the mother of the suicide victim spoke up did the silence of those present break. There are now other former students who have sat in silence in the auditorium and confirm that they too had been abused by Pistorius and other teachers. They are relieved that they can finally talk about it and that they are believed.

In the credits of the film it is reported that from the 1960s to the 1990s at least 132 pupils were abused at the Odenwald School. None of the perpetrators was convicted of their crimes because they were time barred before they were known.

background

The background to the film is the abuse scandals at the Odenwald School . After long discussions with the school administration at the time, “The Chosen” was shot in the late summer of 2013 in the Odenwald School itself.

The Hamburg Regional Court banned the film in the broadcast version on November 30, 2014. Even before the first broadcast on October 1, 2014, two former students defended themselves against the broadcast because they saw their personal rights violated. A Berlin media lawyer obtained a ban on film for one of the two former students.

Director Christoph Röhl himself was a tutor at the Odenwald School between 1989 and 1991 . In 2011 he made the documentary And We Are Not the only ones on the subject. In his fictional approach (book: Sylvia Leuker and Benedikt Röskau) Röhl tells of the incidents primarily from the perspective of a young teacher (Julia Jentsch) who, like he once did, comes to school unprepared. A school where everyone should be happy according to their own style according to the motto “become who you are”, under which the reform pedagogy school was founded in 1910.

reception

In Mirror online Christian Buss wrote: "The film leaves the usual TV prime-time requirements (except for the wooden Embassy dramaturgy at the very end) confidently behind. In spite of all the case-specific accuracy, “The Chosen” has not become a work-through project for the Odenwald School, but rather a portrayal of a time when a helpless generation of parents believed to see their children's happiness in the dissolution of boundaries. A mistake that has an impact today. That makes the film an extremely dark affair in spite of all the sunshine. "

The online television magazine tittelbach.tv rated: “'The Chosen' is an important contribution to raising awareness by making the functioning of abuse understandable for viewers. 'The Chosen' is also worth seeing as a film that empathically, sensitively and with fine aesthetic metaphors brings the difficult topic primetime suitable, but without trivializing it, to a broad audience. "

Scientists recently accused the film of "making disgraceful capital out of terrible real-historical events" by relying on cinematic and dramaturgical means that do not register and stimulate intellectually, but rather "sensation-seeking, voyeuristic, denunciating and blind indignation promoting nature" are.

Awards

  • Nomination Prix Europa 2014
  • Winner New York Festival 2014 - Gold World Medal
  • Winner ZOOM Igualada Festival 2014 - Best Film
  • Nomination for the German Audio Film Award 2015 - best television film

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Chosen . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2014 (PDF; test number: 146 783 V).
  2. ^ Court forbids ARD film about Odenwald school. focus.de , November 30, 2014, accessed December 27, 2014 .
  3. ^ ARD drama about Odenwald School: Sun, Moon and Abuse. spiegel.de , October 1, 2014, accessed December 27, 2014 .
  4. ↑ Christian Buß: At least 132 students were abused at the Odenwald School. With "The Chosen", the WDR now delivers an unfathomable film on the subject: Here, the pedagogue's paradise turns disturbingly casually into a pederast's hell. at Spiegel-online , accessed on March 28, 2018.
  5. ↑ TV film "The Chosen". tittelbach.tv , October 5, 2014, accessed on December 27, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Günter Helmes: “I really thought that the job would suit me. But guess what: I can't stand children! ”Thoughts on newer and newest German-language TV and feature films on the subjects of“ being a teacher ”and“ school ”. In: Smart, Smarter, Failed? The contemporary image of school and teaching in literature and media, ed. by Günter Helmes and Günter Rinke. Hamburg, Igel-Verlag 2016, pp. 157-204, in particular pp. 196-203, quotation p. 203. ISBN 978-3-86815-713-0 .
  7. ^ Medals at the New York Film Festival. wdr.de , April 15, 2015, accessed December 27, 2015 .
  8. ↑ 13th German Audio Film Award 2015