About the director

In over 40 years of career, filmmaker Ruth Beckermann has shown interest for all kinds of social struggle in her homeland of Austria, always with a keen eye on the material conditions of labour and the ways in which people organize to improve them or bypass them. Political activism, a preoccupation with her country’s past guided by her experience of being daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors, and a sensibility towards the people she films, have placed Beckermann as one of the fundamental documentalists in contemporary Western Europe.

Press reviews

“In its subtle but profound political commitment to the story and the people it portrays, Favoriten ends up being, effectively, a vindication of other possible pedagogical and forms and of the educational and transformative potential of the school.” (Jara Yáñez, Caimán)

“Favoriten effectively navigates ideas of race, community and opportunity through its endearing, and often surprisingly insightful, subjects.” (Nikki Baughan, Screen Daily)

The director about the film

“I'm mainly interested in the future. These children are the future of our society. Ilkay's class is representative of many elementary school classes in Vienna or Berlin (...) The great thing about this teacher is that she engages in debate. The discussions in class are incredibly exciting. They involve questions such as: Are girls allowed to go swimming? Are girls... women allowed to wear a bikini? They discuss refugee issues, they discuss the Ukraine war. Ilkay also gets involved in arguments with the children, but she always has complete respect for them.” (Ruth Beckermann, Austrian Films).