Kulturkino Kaimt-"Der Lehrer, der uns das Meer versprach"

Director: Patricia Font
Cast: Enric Auquer, Laia Costa, Luisa Gavasa

Spanish drama based on a true story about a teacher who takes over a class just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
Spain in 1935. Antoni Benaiges (Enric Auquer) starts a job as a teacher in a small village in the province of Burgos. He serves the new, democratically elected republican government, which had deposed his predecessor, the village priest (Milo Taboada), as an educator. Antoni is not only politically a revolutionary; he also completely overhauls the school curriculum. While winning the hearts of the children, he turns conservative parents and the mayor against him.
75 years later: The young mother Ariadna (Laia Costa) learns that her grandfather has put out a search request for volunteers to excavate mass graves from the time of the Franco dictatorship. From these two narrative strands, director Patricia Font weaves an exciting drama about the fundamental contrast between democracy and fascism. And about a reform pedagogical movement that is especially well-known in the Romance-speaking world.

The story of Antoni Benaiges is a homage to the many republican teachers who were executed during Franco's coup in July 1936 as part of the systematic eradication of the progressive education system in Spain. Both the story of Benaiges and that of Ariadna in the present (loosely) draw on true events. The film intertwines two plot lines at different time levels, the past and the present, and shows how important it is to keep the memory of our recent history from fading into oblivion.