A high school teacher's experiment to demonstrate to his students what life is like under a dictatorship spins horribly out of control when he forms a social unit with a life of its own.

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(short story and original protocols) (as William Ron Jones), (screenplay) | 3 more credits »
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Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
Rainer Wenger
...
Tim Stoltefuss
...
Marco
...
Karo
...
Anke Wenger
Jacob Matschenz ...
Dennis
Cristina do Rego ...
Lisa
...
Sinan
Maximilian Vollmar ...
Bomber
...
Kevin (as Maximilian Mauff)
Ferdinand Schmidt-Modrow ...
Ferdi
Tim Oliver Schultz ...
Jens
Amelie Kiefer ...
Mona
Fabian Preger ...
Kaschi
...
Maja
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Storyline

High school teacher, Rainer Wegner, may be popular with the students, but he's also unorthodox. He's forced to teach autocracy for the school's project week. He's less than enthusiastic at first, but the response of the students is surprising to say the least. He forces the students to become more invested in the prospect of self rule, and soon the class project has its own power and eerily starts to resemble Germany's past. Can Wegner and his class realize what's happening before the horrors start repeating themselves? Written by napierslogs

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Taglines:

Evil is something that you learn [Sweden] See more »

Genres:

Drama | Thriller

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Details

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Release Date:

13 March 2008 (Germany)  »

Also Known As:

La ola  »

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Box Office

Budget:

€5,000,000 (estimated)
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Company Credits

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Technical Specs

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Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
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Did You Know?

Trivia

Based on the novel "The Wave" by Todd Strasser (under the pen name Morton Rhue), a fictionalized account of the "Third Wave" teaching experiment by Ron Jones that took place in a Cubberley High School history class in Palo Alto, California in April 1967. See more »

Goofs

The way the word "Autokratie" is written on the black board changes between shots. See more »

Quotes

Karo: Rainer I don't think you have this under control anymore, not at all.
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Crazy Credits

Opening and closing credits appear as graffiti. See more »

Connections

References Hape trifft! (2005) See more »

Soundtracks

Homezone
Written by Jens Moelle and Ismail Tüfekçi
Performed by Digitalism
©Edition Metrobass
Courtesy of Universal Music Publishing GmbH
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Frequently Asked Questions

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User Reviews

 
Good twists / no black & white opinion
27 September 2008 | by (United Kingdom) – See all my reviews

This is a German film (subtitled) about a school project looking at autocracy (a la Nazi Germany). In order for the teacher to persuade his pupils that autocracy remains a real threat to democracy, he persuades them to take part in a class dictatorship. The key difference between this and your average school classroom is that he convinces the pupils not just to obey but also to want his every command. Of course the project turns bad and things get scary.

What I liked about the film was that it did not treat the pupils as "just kids"; they had brains, opinions, and their own ethics too. It is not a very black and white in it's opinion, you could draw some distinct opinion from the film but I suggest that there are several different opinions that are equally as valid. It keeps you guessing what is going to happen & even deliberately misleads you.


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