There are teachers that they meet in the classroom and there are teachers who go beyond their responsibilities habitual, who are committed to their students and they worry that their training is not reduced to what is in their books and notebooks.
Lucio is a literature teacher who arrives at a secondary school in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Bonnera. Among the conflicts of the students, both because of their age and because of the conditions of the community in which they live, he finds in his vocation a extraordinary commitment that will lead him to want to save them.
This is what the movie poses “Alternate”, that will hit movie theaters in Mexico on January 26 and is already number 1 in netflix argentina. In an interview via Zoom with VANGUARDIA we talked with its director, Diego Lermannwho shared that the project was born from a “sort of admiration” and recognition that is not usually given to teachers in general, especially because of how they observe it in their native country.
“I feel that there are a lot of activities that they do that go beyond their tasks and their work that was not recognized on a social level. It was research a bit, follow them, have interviews and from all that great research, which took more than two years, to start thinking about where this film could count”, he explained.
“Hence the need, and above all because they work in a population group, and at an age, where they make a difference. I believe that education saves lives there, beyond training for a possible future, what it does is the possibility of having teachers who give a perspective of the future, of another path. Education is something that bets on, today for what will happen tomorrow, ”he added.
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Lerman points out that the dynamic that exists between teacher and student is very different from what occurs in other relationships of daily life, perhaps crossed by the money or interest. Learning, for the director, is swap and share.
“It is always important, but in that segment of society it is decisive. It is what makes a fifteen-year-old boy or girl continue in school or not and if they finish school, their reality is one and if they don’t finish it, it is another. And if that, aside, opens up a world of interest, of possibilities and toolsIt gives him another perspective on life,” he stressed.
The research that led to this film, he said, started from a proposal made by the producer John Vera. From there, they worked for two years on interviews with teachers, students, and administrators of schools in marginalized neighborhoods, as well as field studies in those places.
“It was from there that we saw, and it arose from the investigation, because it was not a previous idea that I had, how the drug trafficker is involved and that battle that arises there, where many of the students and students They specifically propose jobs that most of the time end badly. So there is a mixture of education and getting money quickly with this danger in the middle of adolescence, which is a very special stage of life, ”he shared.
And although the recordings intersected with the pandemic, everything went ahead. Lerman commented that the inhabitants of the neighborhood where they filmed were very involved with the production and both students and most of the teachers were interpreted by people who had never acted, but who after several selection processes resulted in a group that was capable of evoking the energy sought.
“We put together a possible classroom and with that, training began, rehearsals, talks, getting to know them, teaching them what the dynamics of cinema was like, that there is a script but that it did not have to be something rigid and look from the direction that there is a scenic dynamics but that it does not seem false, that there is some of that adolescent energy in the classroom, those hormones on the surface and that fun, they are very sparkling and I wanted that to be in the film ”, he concluded.
