Section enfants sauvages

Classes of general and adapted teaching (SEGPA) welcome children that are failing at school. In a lower secondary school at La Courneuve in the Paris suburbs, a French teacher in charge of one of these classes decides to initiate his pupils to theatre in order to help them open up their minds and discover the world. He brings in an actor-director who, while remaining firm on work and discipline, understanding the children’s anxiety, seduces them and convinces them that something exists beyond their rundown housing estates, that they can succeed, that beyond the play they are preparing, theatre can help them assert themselves, gain confidence and put up with the unbearable: how other people see them. The children change, as does our own perception. Presented in three acts (learning how to act and improvise, learning lines, performance), the film also follows the teacher’s diary of the rehearsals. Section des enfants sauvages is first and foremost a film on ways of seeing. (Yann Lardeau)