Young and enthusiastic teacher Anamarija starts a new job at a primary school that soon turns out to be a place filled with strained relationships, power games and easily bruised egos. At first, she tries to stay out of the headmistress’s games and focus only on children. But the more she learns about the system, the more she begins to understand that, in order to survive, she will have to abandon her principles and start playing her own game in the staffroom. A multi-faceted study of an institution that educates future generations of adults.
“The most challenging, but also the most important, part of this story was making sure that you could empathise with everyone in that room. It’s claustrophobic, but you understand why someone is scared of the parents or compassionate towards some lunatic who works with her every day. At the same time, you also understand the parents, the counsellor and the headmistress. Everybody is wrong and right at the same time. The anxiety is there, but nobody is a bad guy. They all have their own reasons why they don’t want to pick a fight. Anamarija can’t help one of the students, precisely because she has made too many enemies. You have to get on with the others in order to do your job.”
- Sonja Tarokić
