To Be and to Have (Être et avoir)(2002)
dir. Nicolas Philibert
One teacher, one room, ages four to eleven.
Where to watch: Free on Kanopy and Hoopla; Kino Film Collection $5.99/mo (JustWatch US, Oct 2026)Letterboxd ↗
A year in a one-room village school in the Auvergne, France, where a single teacher, Georges Lopez, teaches children from four to eleven. Philibert watches without narration: a boy who won't write, a fight over a lost cap, a farm child learning to read. It became one of the biggest French documentaries ever.
Why it’s here
The film is a record of a teacher who lets time and mixed ages do much of the work. What's punk is the absence of rankings and tests, and that nothing happens except learning. What's pedagogical is how it shows a classroom without a screen, a mixed-age group and a patient adult. A quiet companion to The Class and Summerhill School. Note: Lopez sued the director in 2003 for a share of the profits and lost.
Where This Film Lives
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