Shot almost entirely in the classroom of a Parisian school where a group of international students are enrolled in a programme to facilitate their integration, Bertuccelli’s astute School of Babel follows them as they struggle to adapt to a new language, culture and identity. Aged between 11 and 15, the students come from a variety of backgrounds and from dispersed corners of the world – Senegal, China, Venezuela, Ukraine, Libya and Ireland. Some are staying with relatives and others are coping largely independently at home while their parents work long hours for low pay.

The film captures this complexity with sensitivity but also conveys each of the students’ different personalities and the close relationships they develop with each other as well as with their intuitive and compassionate teacher Madame Cervoni. (Notes by Alice Butler.)

IFI IRISH SHORT
These screenings will be preceded by Eoin Duffy’s IFB funded short animation The Missing Scarf. (6 mins, Ireland, 2013)

IFI FRENCH FILM CLUB
IFI French Film Club screening this month will take place on December 8th at 17.10. Tickets €7 for IFI and Alliance Française members. Please ask at IFI Box Office.

Don’t forget we now schedule weekly.

★★★★ The Irish Times