Nichts als Schule

Somehow every day is the same, you come, you go, you spend your time in this strange construct called school. Some go to school for four to five years (perhaps with one or more honorary rounds). Others go to school for 35 years or more, a lifetime of work. What they all have in common is the time spent together, on good days and bad.

Schools have their own particular lived reality. But the social conditions and challenges are as different as the people who spend time there together. Schools become the catch-all place for social tensions. Ultimately, they are places where people have to get along with each other, no matter where they come from. The project “Nichts als Schule” (nothing but school) aims to make these different realities of life visible. Young people share their precise and often unsparing view of life – a view of the future.

In front of and behind the camera, a film is being made as a joint effort by the students, the teachers and ultimately the film crew. The film is commented on, supplemented and expanded in parallel via social media. The media of the next generation, who thus contribute their own world of communication.

Based in St. Pölten, Anita Lackenberger has made more than 50 films and TV documentaries in the last 20 years. Apart frm her feature films “Vals” and “Ein Wilder Sommer” (a wild summer), she released “Leben an der Grenze – Gmünd” (life at the border – Gmünd) from the series “Universum History” and most “Herr Morgenstern und seine Synagoge” (Mr. Morgenstern and his synagogue) about the last living Jew in St. Pölten, which was published in 2023. Anita Lackenberger has been col­laborating with the Mittelschule Viehofen since 2014, which has already resulted in several exciting films and treatments.