Documentary about education. The camera being often at eye-level, the spectator imagines being back in school.

The voice-over introduces the subject: the four- to sixteen-year-olds who attend school year in year out; the ‘tabulae rasae’. Next, director Carina Ellemers mainly makes the images talk: in long close-ups of studying – and often pondering – children, demonstrating how well they can count or which numbers they can already (almost) write. Or the meditative repetition with which a single letter is mastered. But Ellemers also shows older children, learning geometry, English, swimming or playing the guitar. Patiently, she keeps close to her subjects, with the camera often at eye level, so the spectator imagines himself back in school. There is little music, so the typical school-day sounds can be heard. Shots of – still ‘blank’ – babies heighten our wonder at how much a child can and must learn.

director: Carina Ellemers
camera: Carina Ellemers and Tijn van Dijk
editing: Barbara Hin (†) and Carina Ellemers
music: Bela Bartok
producer: Carina Ellemers (for Stichting Benina)
broadcaster: HUMAN

>awarded< in the main competition of the Film Festival in Thessaloniki Greece