FESTIVAL WINNER 2ND CLASS
A New Teacher is Beaten By Nazis
“2nd Class” is an ironic title for this short film, which critiques the treatment of minorities by White Supremacists internationally. Hate groups target Black Americans and treat them like 2nd class citizens based on race. 2nd Class is a film about racial tension and the perspectives of a second-grade school teacher and her white student, Anton. After an aggressive incident between the teacher, Charlotte, and a neo nazi, she returns to her second-grade classroom to discover one of her students is the son of the nazi assailant. One night, Charlotte and her friends run into a neo nazi rally where a Supremacist breaks her nose with a headbutt and traumatizes Charlotte. The teacher reflects on the incident with her friends in the hospital before returning to class the next day. There, she discovers a picture of the neo nazi on a student’s family tree. Charlotte thinks this child might be filled with hatred from his parents, so she demonstrates that hate cannot triumph over love and truth. Finally, she drives Anton home and hopes that her lesson has stuck.
2nd Class won 56 awards internationally and was selected for 170 official festivals worldwide. It is written & directed by Jimmy Olsson, who currently works in Stockholm and has developed a series of award-winning short films–including Alive (2020), Repressed (2011), among others–and now pursues work in feature films and shows. The star, Hannah Alem-Davidson, has starred in other movies, including Nelly Rapp: Monster Agent (2020) and Sune – Best Man (2019). Alem-Davidson is gripping in this role, expressing the emotional changes which “Charlotte” undergoes, spreading fear after her run-in with the assailant and terror when she finds out the boy could be a nazi. The cinematography is minimalistic but echoes Swedish filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Fassbinder, who Olsson admires. Dark colors create an ominous atmosphere that vividly presents the neo nazi rally’s horror. Moreover, the pace of the film wraps up the story in a cool veneer, connecting moments like when Anton is first exposed to love and understanding through Charlotte’s “balloon metaphor”–scotch tape is placed around the balloon to protect it from popping when a needle is put through it.
This film is a standalone classic, topical in the current political atmosphere of intolerance and racism, including the attack on Washington this past January 6. Watch this important film.
