Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a new teacher at a German junior high school, teaching maths and physics to a charming bunch of 12-14 year old boys and girls. Her control of the class begins to slip however when a series of thefts occur and she falsely accuses one of her students; but the case is not so easily resolved and Carla finds herself embroiled in a plot to entrap and expose the real culprit. The finger of guilt seems to point at Friederike (Eva Lobau), who works as the school secretary and whose son Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch) is in Carla’s class. With the rumour mill working overtime, exacerbated by the school newspaper’s interest in the case, Carla finds herself in a battle of wills with the implacable Oskar who displays resolve beyond his years.

Notes by David O’Mahony