The Wave / And Along Come Tourists

THE WAVE (DIE WELLE), 2008, 107 min. Dir. Dennis Gansel. Rainer Wenger (Juergen Vogel), a young unconventional high-school teacher is stuck lecturing on autocracy (he prefers anarchy) during the school's project week. He turns the lesson into a simulation, transforming his class of some 30 students into a microcosmic dictatorship. The experiment spins dangerously out of control when the movement takes on a life of its own.

AND ALONG COME TOURISTS (AM ENDE KOMMEN TOURISTEN), 2007, 85 min. Dir. Robert Thalheim. Performing his national service abroad, Sven (Alexander Fehling) is sent to Auschwitz, where he slowly realises that the present reality of the place as a tourist destination is bound up with the past. Auschwitz is the unlikely background for a love story between a German and Polish youngster. Part of the Un Certain Regard line-up in Cannes, the film toys with heavy subject matter in a contemporary and light-hearted way without seeming frivolous or disrespectful.