The primary setting of the 'The Teachers' Lounge' - which, despite the title of Germany's Oscar submission, is a sixth-grade classroom - is a microcosm of the larger world. This environment is the fiefdom of teacher Carla Nowak, played by a subtly expressive Leonie Benesch, who renders her character as if she were the enlightened leader of a tiny, democratic city-state: one who rules not with an iron fist but with a velvet glove. At one early point, Carla invites her students to vote on whether she should share individual test grades with the whole classroom, but then deftly overrides the majority, eager to know where they stand in the pecking order, with a persuasive speech about privacy rights.
Petty theft is a bit more rampant: Things have been going missing lately, including, oddly, a box of 1,000 pencils - no, it's not set in the 1890s - and cash from the piggy bank where teachers drop coins to cover the cost of coffee in the titular sanctuary (which turns out not to be much of one in the end). One teacher mentions, with innuendo, the new cleaning staff.
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