A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

A young teacher in Bhutan, who dreams of going to Australia to be a singer, is posted to Lunana, the most remote school in the world, a village at the top of the Himalayas with no electricity. He arrives expecting to quit. The children, the villagers and a yak he did not ask for change his mind about what a classroom is. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best International Feature.

Why it’s here: The film is a quiet argument that school is a person in a room who is paying attention. What's punk is how little it has: no power, no textbooks, a blackboard made from a wall. What's pedagogical is that it shows a teacher being taught by the place and kids who are not behind, they are elsewhere. Pairs with Teacher (Ashton-Warner), How Children Learn and Summerhill School. Note: it is gentle and not at all rebellious in tone; Bhutan's monarchy and its history with its Nepali-speaking minority are not part of the story.

The story of Kathleen Hanna, singer of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, who helped start riot grrrl, and then went quiet at the height of her influence. Anderson uses interviews, performance footage and Hanna's own account of why she stopped and what came after. It is both a history of a movement and a portrait of the person who paid for it.

Why it’s here: The film shows how a movement is built by people with a photocopier and a loud voice. What's punk is the insistence that girls get to take up space and say the unsayable. What's pedagogical is the zine culture, the way the music was a tool for organizing and the way an art scene can be a school. Pairs with Notes from Underground, Please Kill Me and Bad Feminist. Note: it is an admiring portrait, and riot grrrl's whiteness and its limits are only touched on.