"Since 1978, the " Freie Schule Tempelhot ", an elementary school located in the south of Berlin, otters to more than sixty children the possibility to grow up treely." "The white shark and the tree" ""All seamen in position!" shouted Biihler when he was ready." "For his grandfather taught him that too." "Nicky, have you got some cardboard?" "Yes..." "Sleep my darling!" "Sweet dreams!" "Soon you will be in paradise" "Because soon the door will open, and a monster will come" "Looking at you with eleven little eyes and creeps closer to your bed." "Oli, I'll try another way." "Who showed it to you?" "Was it Patrick?" "Wait, I'll show you." "Oli, try another way!" "First, it's important to press the panel and push it in gently." "So ' now turn It "on"!" "So, you come from another school, don't you?" "Yep." "Why did you decided to come here?" "It was lust too strict over there?" "They weren't cool?" "My Mom told me I should try something else." "So I did." "And at that time, I thought it was great, it was so cool here," "I thought it was the best." "And I wanted to stay forever, but now..." "Now you've grown up." "You probably feel like going towards something different, where you won't be tooling around." "You need something different." "You need to go your own way, don't you?" "Yes." "Learning a little bit more..." "Learning a little more, yeah right." "That's exactly the thing that people argue over." "Some say that children here learn too little." "What they might need for later..." "Here, we don't have four hours of Maths a day, three hours of English or whatever..." "Here, you can say that you rather feel like doing this or that." "But what is really considered is this kind of interaction..." "It means... just being a child." "Isn't it warm here Aenne?" "What?" "It's really warm here in the sun!" "Yes..." "It's a shame that there is no candy-holder up here!" "Yes I know." "I'm already looking forward to the time when it will be warm so we can go on horseriding, don't you?" "when it will be warm so we can go on horseriding, don't you?" "Yeah!" "All you ever think of is horseriding." "I like climbing so much." "It's my hobby!" "I'll take off my jacket too." "Ah, it's so beautiful to be out here so freely!" "We can stay for hours!" "Poor little thing..." "Why?" "Well, with this treehouse." "Well, we could demolish it." "Yeah, let's do it, we can't even climb here anymore." "Yeha, but we need scissors to do that!" "Shall I go and get some?" "Yes, please." "I took off my shoes." "Pass me the scissors up here!" "Be careful!" "Here they are." "You can pull except this one." "I think it's loose!" "It is loose!" "So go up and take the scissors." "We built it and it took us more than two weeks!" "Where is the evidence that it was us who did it?" "We needn't tell you." "Do you know who it was?" "And you, Aenne ?" "No." "We don't know." "And when we climbed, this junk was already there." "We're getting the police!" ""We're getting the police!"" "They won't do that." "The police won't come for a broken treehouse in school." "If the police come, I will be surprised, how about you?" "Me too." "We are lucky." "I don't think that the police will come for a broken treehouse in school." "Yes." "But they can find another reason to come." "You'll have to pay a lot." "Because if they come, then they'll discover it isn't worthwhile." "And then, you'll have to pay a lot for nothing." "Yes." "They are really making money whit this..." "with these kind of wrong claims." "I know..." "And it happens..." "sometimes often but sometimes rarely." "Uh-oh, what's happening?" "If they ask me something, I'll answer, it not, I'll keep quiet, othenivise I'll make a mistake." "I'm a bad liar." "Come on, help me, Aenne !" "What?" "Well, look." "They're coming!" "So what?" "Well great!" "Maybe you're a little stronger than me!" "It doesn't have to do anything with strenght." "Well, well, well" "What shows we did it?" "Philip did it!" "We thought that you came here to beat us up." "We're here to chase you because we want to build a new treehouse." "Can we?" "Yes you can." "But you have to think that in the summer we'll be here more often." "on, all this for nothing..." "They are school friends." "We'll fix it!" "The Republic considered Rotom as an enemy!" "Forget the droids!" "Shoot them!" "But that wasn't Rotom!" "But that wasn't Rotom!" "Well, but they're shooting Rotom now, because they think that it was Rotom." "Emma!" "What?" "We must have a meeting." "All those who took part in the building of the treehouse have to come." "But I hardly did anything." "Yes you did, you built it with us." "We all have to go!" "Even those who just put one single nail." "Even if you just hammered on the planks." "You have to come with us!" "Me too?" "If you like..." "So where is Doro?" "Oli, can we get started?" "What is all this good for?" "Atreehouse meeting?" "These little brats want us to pull the treehouse down." "Why?" "Because this is the best climbing tree and when you put a treehouse in the way, you cannot climb anymore." "If you could at least move it a little bit." "This would be ok!" "Or reduce it!" "It doesn't work." "A smaller one would work!" "You just don't want it." "Well, it's ok with me if it stays there but it should be a little smaller and not take so much space!" "How many planks off?" "No planks at all!" "The craziest about the treehouse is that it's going to last a couple of months." "When it rains, the planks will rot." "But it may take a year." "What would you prefer?" "A good strong treehouse?" "No!" "No treehouse at all!" "But you said you didn't care..." "It's ok if you take off a piece like that." "But anyway, something has to be changed." "Then, show us what must be changed!" "She wants to take off a part of it!" "Where?" "We just want to climb!" "And we want to keep the treehouse!" "But you can build your treehouse somewhere else." "Not attached to the trunk but a little behind..." "Why not reduce it by half?" "Yes, half and that's it!" "Listen everybody!" "We could take a sheet paper and go tsicke-tsacke tsicke-tsacke and the meeting is over!" "No use getting excited!" ""Tsicke-Tsacke chicken-poo-poo!"" "Shall we go there and have a look which planks have to go?" "Let's go all together and show." ""Tsicke-Tsacke chicken-poo-poo!"" "Two planks have to go!" "Yes have a look and show them!" "Emma, just have a look!" "Oli you have to go with them!" "I'll be right there." "I just have to go somewhere first." "I can read lower case letters." "Yes, you can read well Emma." "I already noticed it!" "Great!" "We're a small community." "The school is a small community." "Sure, there are small groups, but," "we are a community indeed." "We are one big family." "We are all part of it." "I mean..." "How can I explain?" "It's really hard to find the words..." "True..." "It's just a kind of..." "Well, it's just the feeling and the atmosphere." "Exactely." "It's exactely that feeling when you have a breack." "You are looking fonivard to the break all the time." "Here, you've got that feeling all day, don't you?" "Look at them!" "It seems as if they were having a break all day." "At breaktime, children rush outside..." "But here, they are just running outside without the bell ringing." "That's better." "It's more quiet and less stressing." "We are not sitting there waiting..." "and now we're allowed to go!" "Yes." "They are always looking at the clock over the blackboard..." "This doesn't exist here..." "You can't remember anything!" "You're dead!" "You can't run away!" "Gee!" "Why did you lock us up in here?" "Wa can't remember if we are allowed into the Republic!" "Under arrest!" "Under arrest!" "You're alive again, Nemo!" "Hey, better don't do that!" "Come along!" "I take your gun!" "Out of order." "In order!" "The droid commandos are coming." "They can jump over the walls." "This is an order!" "Surrender!" "Or I kill him!" "But he's almost dead!" "Surrender, Sam!" "Please!" "Sam!" "Be quiet!" "Sam, surrender!" "He's cutting your hand off..." "Your weapon is falling!" "Sam, it was an order!" "You didn't obey!" "Sir, should we execute them?" "They're just under arrest!" "Where are you taking us?" "Special death." "0k, now it's the day after." "Droid, untie them!" "Let's go to the spaceship!" "Two magma-guardians will lead you." "But I'm dead!" "No, you're alive again!" "...in care of two magma-guardians." "No clone should mess around with magma-guardians!" "Hey, I'm talking!" "You should have listened to me, this was an order!" "Quiet!" "I think they should take off two planks at last, if they don't," "when it gets a little warmer we will just destroy the whole thing!" "I'd like to see their faces!" "When you want to learn something, what do you do?" "When I feel learning something," "When I feel learning something," "| ask one among the six teachers, it depends who's there." "| tell them what I want and we just do it." "It's easy." "That's it." "It's simple." "Then, I can do anything." "If I want to do punctuation, I do it, or spelling, reading, and maths, too." "Actually, I can do anything." "But..." "You needn't pratice your strong points." "And it's exacter what I do with Doro." "With her, I focused on subjects that are important in highschool." "We could do it because she selected the things I needed." "There, they tell you exactly what you need to know." "She taught me exactly what I had to know, what I would have learnt in an ordinary school." "She did it in a year." "It was very fast." "Of course she gave me the time I needed to understand, but..." "Yes, that's the important thing, you were given the time you needed." "Yes." "The heart!" "The heart goes there!" "But that's not the heart!" "What is the heart?" "That's the heart." "Wow, show me!" "£5?" "Do you already have in mind what you want to write?" "It makes four." "Why?" "Four..." "Aah, | see!" "Fuck!" "Yes, you counted again from bottom to top." "But I thought." "Here you counted seven minus tree." "Try again!" "Yes, can you...write another one?" "Shall I write it down again?" "We can also count together." "If you want, you can bring someone up against his will." "Yes." "It's not nice, but it happens." "Of course." "Here, it isn't against one's will." "Yes, that's the whole concept here." "Everybody here can do what they want." "But in the end it turns out right." "Everybody just does what he likes." "But usually you are good at things you enjoy doing." "And you keep doing them better and better" "It's exactely what you said before, you work on your strong points." "They play football all day because they enjoy it, and they become better and better." "Here's an easy example." "They learn German, that's why, they're good at German." "There are also Wiener sausages with ketchup!" "Eew!" "I want a sausage!" "Did you have some ketchup with your fish?" "I'll throw it in the garbage later." "And where are you, little caca-poop!" "Hey, you want to come upstairs too, guys?" "Hey, you want to come upstairs too, guys?" "No, we're eating down here in the shade." "It's not so cool up there." "Ole, stop!" "That's annoying!" "Not me!" "...But us!" "What's the big deal?" "You're on the movie!" "And your parents may see how you behave!" "Of course!" "How can my parents get to see this movie?" "It may be shown in a cinema!" "Yes, but not..." "Don't you know that they cut a film into small pieces gather them into a film." "It won't be shown in a cinema because a film about the Freie Schule is really stupid." "Nobody is really interested in it!" "Maybe you aren't." "Yeah, but others may watch it and then they see how you are." "Yeah, so what's wrong?" "They don't even know me." "And most movies are not shot, but made." "Yes, by computer." ""Yes, by computer!"" "I know everything you know!" "And even more!" "I know even more than you know!" "You don't even know how apples grow." "Not from seed!" "From sprouts!" "Of course not." "They grow on a tree." "You could sow a seed and grow a potato-tree here!" "A potato tree doesn't exist!" "Yes, in a magic world." "on, in magic world...ok!" "Yes, and when a tree has sex with an apple tree, for example, if this tree has sex with that one... then, they die!" "Because they pass on fruits each other, right!" "So this one passes on the next one... there will be plums growing on this one, and apples on the other one even if they grow on the wrong tree." "Both of them are apple trees!" "No, this one is a plum tree!" "You don't know everything!" "By the way, you don't know everything either." "Well!" "Nobody knows everything." "If we could travel in the universe, we would certainly find a planet with life." "Yes." "Not with single cells as on Mars but with real life." "Yes!" "If we could find planets with kind of beans on it." "Having different names and looking different, some really dumb, and others really smart!" " Beans?" " Yes." "Walking beans with eyes and arms." "Did you know, that the white shark is not actually a killer?" "Yes." "Yes." "So, why is he considered a killer?" "Do you know, Yuri?" "Do you know, Felix?" "I think because of his appearance and because you wriggle when he bites you." "When he bites you to taste you, and you keep still, then he lets you go, without a scratch." " Like a toothless grandma who bites you, right?" "Right!" "No, he doesn't use his jaw but his tongue." "Pow!" "he licks you!" "He kind of licks you a little bit and picks up the small particules he has collected, this small particules are invisible," "bring them to his palate and checks if it takes good." "Anyway we need some of the green ones that smell really good and some of the pink ones and some of these!" "This one smells really bad!" "I know!" "on, let's make lavender cream!" "With lavender and oil!" "Where from?" "From the school reserves." "And then, we can make a small glass of oil and we could and we could make lavender..." "Where from?" "From the kitchen!" "Steal it? What else can we do?" "Yes, right, what else can we do?" "There is no other way." "We must empty this bootie!" "We could paint flyers and distribute them!" "We could open up small shop, our own shop," "In front of the health food store, and then we could make flyers." "and attach them everywhere and people could write something on them, and take them, and then we'd write" ""UFA Factory Tempelhof" in front of the health food store" "And then they could buy pefume, what do you think?" "We could open a little store, just outside." "But we can't distribute them everywhere because we're too young, we are not allowed to go out our own!" "Unless...wait!" "Let's print a lot of flyers!" "Then we have to make a lot of prints." "That makes a lot of prints!" "No, we'll paint a little bit, then print twenty copies." "No we..." "I would say let's print a lot... really a lot and print them again and again..." "And then we'll ask a teacher, if we can distribute them." "But first we have to get it done." "Let's do that!" "For a test, right?" "What is the oil for?" "Back massage, of course." "What do you think?" "Will we be successful?" "I don't think so." "Why not?" "With honey?" "But honey also smells good!" "But we have to build a small lab." "We will put in all kinds of rubbish." "Yes." "Bring the man here immediately!" "He must be innocent. lt'll cost him a lot." "The game is utterly demanding!" "But the boy is not the only one who saw it." "The camera also saw it." "A watch video?" "Do you think the video was on?" "Yes, it's always on!" "What's that?" ""Trunsch, trunsch!"" "What's that noise?" "Sounds like metal hammering on something..." "No, grinding on something." "What is that "Trunsch" ?" ""Toshizuku lmori, 41, a Taxidriver."" "Hold it gently!" "Hello !" "She didn't hold it right under the saw." "Oli, look what I've done." "Don't be so brutal!" "Be more gentle Charlotte !" "Come here!" "Let me just check something." "Look, Erich, just had his probationary week." "He's completely new here!" "It's hard for somebody new when two big ones tease you." "He's afraid." "I know you guys," "I know that you didn't mean it that way but" "I want him to know you didn't mean to offend him" "You just don't have anything against him personnally..." "He should know it." "But... | just said two or three words to him." "I didn't even notice | scared him." "I know, and you too, Ole." "I know you didn't mean it to be that way." "But you messed around and he was there..." "I know that you didn't do it on purpose, but he should know it!" "He's afraid of you and it's foolish!" "If you don't want to go to school because you're scared, then we are in shit!" "I do the special effects!" "Fire..." "Is he crazy?" "Or is he an evil spirit?" "Is he crazy?" "No, he can spit fire." "Gee!" "Get out!" "Age restriction under nine!" "I don't care!" "I'll stay if I want to!" "This is the program "Giving you creeeeps"!" "It isn't for you!" "It's sly!" "Perfect!" "Not a bad sound, is it?" "Buzz off before I hit you!" "But I can come with you if I want to!" "But..." "Patrick!" "Leila wants to come with us do the flea market !" "In front of the school?" "In front of the organic food store..." "She can also stay with us..." "But I wanted to play the piano with you!" "Quick!" "Let's go!" "We can play the piano if you want to." "Once I saw real brains!" "Did you?" "Oh really?" "But not human ones." "No, but still real fresh ones... fresh ones!" "Animals brains?" "Ok..it's not so unusual if it were not from animals, but humans, that would be special." "Where did you see animals brains?" "Where did you see animals brains?" "At the seaside." "A porpoise's one... that was just this long and the seagulls were already pecking at it." "On the first day, it was all fresh and nice." "On the second day, it was all shreds and you could already see the bones and all." "On the third day, there wasn't much left." "On the first day, you could see a piece of the brain." "That looked disgusting!" "Really disgusting!" "Why did the seagulls peck at it?" "Did they find it tasty?" "Well, it's just the kind of stuff they eat." "That's why seagulls are so often on the seaside." "Isee." "Because there are often fish washed ashore... and when they are dead, they can peck at them." "Isee." "You're going to realize once you graduate from the next school" "what this school here meant yo you and what it brought you." "Then, you'll realize the benefit you got from the time you spent here." "Whenlwas12,130r14," "I thought that all I did here was play football all day long, and hang out all day long." "I didn't learn a lot." "Neither did I." "That's what I thought." "But then, I changed." "I realized that I got stronger here." "The way to deal with people." "My understanding of human relations is just better..." "You see people, you know how to behave with them." "You know what you shouldn't do." "And you're not bullheaded and just don't talk the same stubborn way to everyone." "It's great." "It's about being independent." "I'm much more independent than others." "Yes, that counts, doesn't it?" "Some boys of my age are still tied to their mother's apron string." "They say: "After graduating, next step is going to college."" "They still live at home, do what they are told to do, never do pratical things, they don't get around, never get to meet anyone new..." "I have done all of this." "You know, I have travelled a lot, with karate too..." "Yes, you fucked up your graduation." "Yes, that's true, I didn't pass the exam." "Now, I'm getting my vocational diploma by serving a Volontary Social Year here with you." "You still had three months to go." "Right, three months." "Yes...that was..." "Really bad." "We can talk about it later to tell you how I felt about it." "It was just four months before the exam." "And all the time..." "I was a little reluctant to go to school." "That's the problem!" "If I had done more,it would have been no problem." "But you didn't!" "Right, I didn't." "Now, you can't say don't give a damn!" "How can people be so foolish and drop out three months before." "That's easy now." "No, let me get this straight." "I spoke with several teachers." "Because you had fucked up." "Listen, I spoke with several teachers." "You already said so." "They knocked me down until I surrendered and said:" ""Hey, men, I'll serve a Volontary Year!"" "Anyway, I wanted to do something practical." "What's the point of fulfilling a Volontary Year of Social Service?" "I'll have my technical diploma." "It's not an level certificate but a specialized one in social sciences." "Then I can do some training in this field or even study at university." "Here, the individual is more challenged, this makes this school interesting." "It's about you Zion, you know." "You're not... just one among many students whose name is called out in order to answer a question." "Here, it depends on your personality, on what you feel." "That's most important, that's what counts." "For example, here, everybody is equal." "It's obvious." "Absolutely." "For example, here, we call the teachers by their first names." "Yes." "It's a lot more personal, isn't it?" ""would you be so kind as to let me..."" ""...go to the toilet."" "Yes." "Go to the loo if you have." "It's a human need, why not?" "Good idea!" "It's just, the school system wants people to function and to execute jobs." "And that's how capitalism works." "And that's how capitalism works." "Yes." "Ok, go to the loo." "That's most important..." "Emma!" "Wait!" "I'm going to buy a lot of sodas and when I dance on stage," "I can spout the water all over the place, right?" "Sleep my little child, go to sleep now!" "The stars are twinkling in the sky..." "Sleep my little child, go to sleep fast!" "Your crib is a carroussell." "Sleep my little child, go to sleep fast quickly!" "So that the monster won't catch you." "Translation :" "Simone Kramer and Irina Guldt" "Translation :" "Simone Kramer and Irina Guldt"