NZIFF: Radical

This rousing crowdpleaser starring Eugenio Derbez (CODA, 2021) as a Mexican teacher who thinks outside the box picked up the top Audience Award at this year’s Sundance film festival.

Superstar Mexican actor and comedian Eugenio Derbez gives a big-hearted crowd-pleasing performance as an inspirational teacher in this uplifting Sundance favourite. “Based on the remarkable true story of Sergio Juarez Correa, a teacher in the northeastern Mexican border town of Matamoros, the film was hatched by Christopher Zalla out of a Wired magazine article by Joshua Davis… It’s set in 2011, an especially heated time in the drug wars, in a city plagued by violent crime, poverty and corruption, where the outlook is so grim that education beyond the basics is often viewed as a waste of time.
Derbez’s Sergio is up against all that and more when he signs up to teach elementary-grade students at Escuela José Urbina López, informally known as ‘The School of Punishment’ and one of the least desirable teaching placements in Mexico. The gates are locked every day during school hours to protect the children from the city’s criminal element, but their motivation to learn is dampened by jaded teachers and an institutional policy that emphasizes discipline and obedience over education.” — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter