Films and Documentaries
This list includes films including documentaries and feature films about education in India, South Asia and international contexts. The films highlight the tensions and negotiations between various actors engaged in education bringing out perspectives from students, teachers, parents, administrators etc.
This 6-minute-long documentary short features 25 people who describe what gender education means to them by answering a number of hard-hitting questions on gender and sexuality.
Six students from 3 Countries, USA, India and China are moving to College. They soon find themselves in a global competition and it narrows down to: Engineering and Science.
A documentary on struggle for equitable education system in India. Presented by All India Forum for Right to Education.
A documentary film on the indoctrination of young Hindu boys by the Hindu nationalist RSS.
This National Language Project production (1992) was directed by Zackie Achmat and filmed in a Cape Town primary school. It features researchers Ruth Versveld and Rama Kant Agnihotri demonstrating how children’s varied linguistic resources can be used as teaching tools in a multilingual classroom – in particular as part of a ‘Language Activity Class’.
Experiences of children from government schools in tribal India to mainstream progressive schools and alternate schools for dropout children. The film explores their expectations and pain, hopes and aspirations.
The film focuses on the phenomenon of caste and how it operates in various ways in an urban setting. It’s an attempt to raise certain questions, like the notion of pure and impure Marathi, and who holds power because of their access to ‘pure’ Marathi. We will also look at how a particular dialect becomes a marker for one’s caste and leads to exclusion and/or discrimination at various levels.
The film focuses on the phenomenon of caste and how it operates in various ways in an urban setting. It’s an attempt to raise certain questions, like the notion of pure and impure Marathi, and who holds power because of their access to ‘pure’ Marathi. We will also look at how a particular dialect becomes a marker for one’s caste and leads to exclusion and/or discrimination at various levels.
Documentary about new phase of caste system in Kerala including discrimination in nursery and school enrolments.
The management of a school in India installs around 200 cameras on campus to keep tabs on everybody and everything. What does this modern day big brother hope to achieve? What does this phenomenon in the long run?
The film focuses on the phenomenon of caste and how it operates in various ways in an urban setting. It’s an attempt to raise certain questions, like the notion of pure and impure Marathi, and who holds power because of their access to ‘pure’ Marathi. We will also look at how a particular dialect becomes a marker for one’s caste and leads to exclusion and/or discrimination at various levels.
This is the story of ‘Jeevanshalas’ i.e. Schools of Life — primary schools run by the Adivasi (Tribal) people’s movement in the Narmada River Valley in Central India. These schools are a living example of how people’s movements can engage in the construction of alternative social structures.
Documentary detailing the role of Firoze Ashraf, lovingly called “Uncle”, in education of girls, especially poor Muslim girls, in Jogeshwari, Mumbai.
Filmed inside municipal schools in Pune, Maharashtra, through a series of classroom sessions, mid-day meals and teacher-student interactions, the Documentary reveals what goes on inside our schools.
This film tries to explore the direct and indirect influences of school curriculum on children and attempts to raise important question on the education system. It proceeds with interactions with students from two different schools who, like the filmmakers, are a part of this system and are accepting the efficiency and inefficiency of the syllabus with retrospection and critical thinking.
The documentary is based on this kattaikkuttu sangam and kattaikkuttu gurukulam located in Punjarasantankal village, ayangarkulam, Kanchipuram, Tamilnadu. It focuses on their students training in various activities like education, music, dance, arangetram and guru shishya system i.e.; students and teachers are in constant close contact with each other in formal and non-formal settings and young professionals consisting of senior students and graduates of Gurukulam.
This is an attempt to understand how caste makes its presence in the field of chenda, cinematic dance and contemporary folk music performances in Kerala. It also tries to problematize the concepts of ‘body / voice’, ‘traditional / modern’, and ‘low culture / high culture’ in music and dance.
This film captures the lived experiences of female primary school teachers in GLPS Mundur, Palakkad district of Kerala during the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenges of online learning, their coping mechanisms, and the state’s role have been highlighted.
This micro-documentary explores the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the students of a primary school in the semi rural region of Sankarpur, on the outskirts of Kolkata, and amplifies the universal tale of neglect faced by the children living in rural areas.
Two young women follow completely divergent paths in the new, modernizing India-one wants to become Miss India, the other is a fierce Hindu Nationalist prepared to kill and die for her beliefs. Moving between two extremes – the intimate verite drama of the Miss India pageant’s rigorous beauty “bootcamp” and the intense regime of a Hindu Nationalist camp for young girls.
Lockdown Diaries is a short documentary on everyday lives of students in government schools in Nepal. Here, we’ve tried to capture what going to school means for students in Nepal amidst the uncertainties posed by 2015 earthquake and COVID-19 pandemic.
Film about the literacy movement in Kerala with archival footage.
If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children.
This four-part Netflix documentary is a celebration of a pioneering school for the children of Dalits, members of the lowest group in the oppressive caste system that still shapes Indian society. Much of it takes place in classrooms and dormitories. But it’s at its best when it leaves the school grounds and follows the children home, into a harsh and unchanging world whose realities seem hopelessly at odds with the ideals of the school.
The Death of Merit (documentary series) (2011)
Death of Merit is a documentary series that strakly brought out realities of the suicide of students from Dalit and Adivasi communities in elite higher education in India.
David and his Neel Bagh (2022)
A documentary film about the educational work of David Halborough and the school he established called “Neel Bagh”.
Kanyashala (2009)
Students from Kanya Vidyalaya, Vajreshwari- an all-girls’ school, share poignant stories of how they joined the School and their dreams for the future.
Aaj School Javanu Che Tamare? [Are you going to School today?] (2019)
The Film takes us to rural schools in the predominantly tribal district of Dungarpur in southern Rajasthan. With two Government school teachers as focal points, it explores the challenges of being a teacher and a student in fairly adverse circumstances.
I Wonder (2009)
Exploring the school system in different contexts and its impact on the dreams, thoughts and lives of children. (70 mins)
Director/s: Anupama Srinivasan
Language (Subtitles): Multiple languages with English subtitles
The Ghetto Girl (2009)
A love and loss tale about being Muslim in India today, through the search of a young girl through the mapless lanes of her home in Delhi, also called ‘little Pakistan’. (35 mins)
Director/s: Ambarien Alqadar
Language (Subtitles): English with subtitles
Bin Savlyanchya Gavat [In A Shadowless Town] (2019)
The Dalit community reclaims its place in the history, culture and identity of the city of Pune, increasingly being usurped by the upper castes. The film has elements critical to contemporary and historical centrality of education with a section on Mahatma Phule and Savitribai Phule contribution to education. (61 mins)
Director/s: Gouri Patwardhan
Language (Subtitles): Marathi and English with English subtitles
The New Girl in Class (2015)
After trying for years, Neeraja managed to enroll Roshni, her daughter with autism, to a regular school. The Film moves between the challenges and strides that confront the mother-daughter duo face in her learning. (52 mins).
Director/s: Amrita Dasgupta
Language (Subtitles): English with subtitles
Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme
Story of the famous Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme meant to rejuvinate science teaching in Indian Village schools using the Activity Method and the Discovery Approach. A historic programme which alas has itself become history! (56 mins)
Director/s: Ashok Rupner
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - as an educator
Documentary about the educational efforts and philosophy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar including interviews with scholars who worked with him. (23 mins)
Language (Subtitles): English
The Sound of Silence (2018)
The Samaagathi Report on extreme gender discrimination on campuses across Kerala created a furore, as most Vice Chancellors went into denial, calling it false and prejudiced. The Film travels through campuses, speaking to women, providing glimpses of routine discrimination and the culture of silence around the injustice, while discovering that their spirit cannot be contained. (52 mins).
Director/s: BINA PAUL
Language (Subtitles): Malayalam, English
Fiddlers on the Thatch (2003)
An inspirational story of the children of Gandhi Ashram School, Kalimpong, and how learning western classical music has acted as a catalyst for change, opening up new horizons in their otherwise impoverished and humdrum lives. (30 mins)
Director/s: TRISHA DAS AND MADHUR DAS
Language (Subtitles): English
My Child is Gay (2011)
How do parents feel when their child tells them that he or she is gay? An aspect of homosexuality not taken up too often. CNN-IBN’s Anubha Bhonsle spends time with 4 sets of parents, to document how they responded when they learnt their child was gay. (20 mins)
Director/s: Anubha Bhosle
Language (Subtitles): English
Bullets and Butterflies (2007 )
The film traces the journey of a handicapped (sic) street child and a biking enthusiast from the bustling cityscape of Delhi to the serene hills of Himachal Pradesh. The journey starts from a promise made during a fleeting conversation and reaches its fulfillment in an unforeseen, bizarrely deep understanding between the odd pair; inadvertently providing an insight on differently abled people and the hardships of a life lived on the streets. (41 mins)
Director/s: Sushmit Ghosh
Language (Subtitles): English
Placebo (2014)
Centering around the lives of four students at the elite All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, Placebo tells the story using part footage and part-animation about the inseccurity and agitations of students of the college following the suicide of a student. (95 mins)
Director: Abhay Kumar
Nalanda Academy, Wardha (2018)
Nalanda Academy is an educational institute in Wardha, Maharashtra. It gathers bahujan children from marginalized communities across India and aims to help them make their way into India’s premier educational institutions. Establised in 2014, nearly 250 students have transformed their lives from this community funded academy. Inspired by the philosophy of Goutam Buddha, Savitribai Phule, Jotirao Phule and Babasaheb Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the academy marches ahead without any reverse gears. (10 mins)
Fiction Films - South Asia
Kakka Muttai [The Crow’s Egg] (2015)
In a tiny concrete and tin home in the slums live two young brothers with their mother and grandmother. The story covers the ups and down of the boys and their adventures of wanting to eat a pizza. (109 mins)
Director/s: M. Manikandan
Language (Subtitles): Tamil
Thangameenkkal [Golden Fishes] (2009)
A poor laborer named Kalyani is devoted to his young daughter Chellamma, but the child has problems at school with her studies, classmates, and teachers. Kalyani wants Chellamma to be happy, no matter what. Kalyani is a man who toils pretty hard to meet both ends, thereby trying not to live in his father’s shade, but is forced to. The film offers a critique of primary education in Tamil Nadu and makes poignant observations through social commentary (138 mins).
Director/s: Ram
Language (Subtitles): Tamil
Seththumman [Pig] (2020)
Gentle basket seller Poochiyappa has big dreams of social mobility for his grandson, Kumaresan, whose parents died years ago in a caste riot that shook their village. When Poochi’s easily ruffled landlord, instructs him to find a choice pig-or “seththumaan”, whose meat is fetishized among local gourmands, or denigrated by caste conservatives-Poochi and little Kumaresan get busy. (112 mins)
Director/s: Thamizh
Language (Subtitles): Tamil with English subtitles
Ayali (2023)
In this webseries, Tamil Selvi, a teenager, struggles with her dreams of becoming a doctor in the oppressive village of Veerappannai. Will she be able to break the 500-year-old custom that bars women’s education? (8 episodes)
Director/s: Muthukumar
Language (Subtitles): Tamil (original), Telugu (audio) with English subtitles
Angrezi Medium [English Medium] (2020)
Champak Bansal is a widower and a sweet-shop owner in Udaipur, Rajasthan. He often fights with his half-brother Gopi, who runs a competing sweet-shop, but they’re greatly fond of each other. Champak’s daughter Tarika has always harboured a dream to travel and study abroad. Though she is poor in studies, Champak is strongly supportive of her dream, and, with some effort, she secures a high rank in her final school examinations, enough for her to secure a scholarship from London’s Truford University. (145 mins)
Director/s: Homi Adajania
Language (Subtitles): Hindi
Doore Doore Oru Koodu Koottam [Far away we shall build a nest] (1986)
After acquiring fake degrees, Divakaran decides to teach in a government aided school that is run by corrupt individuals. However, when he sees the children suffering, he decides to change the system. The film revolves around the school in a remote village. (116 mins)
Director/s: Sibi Malayil
Language (Subtitles): Malayalam
Taare Zameen Par [Stars in earth] (2007)
Ishaan is criticised by his parents for his poor academic performance and is sent away to a boarding school. Ram, an art teacher, however, realises he has dyslexia and helps him uncover his potential. (184 mins)
Director/s: Aamir Khan, Amole Gupte
Language (Subtitles): Hindi, with English subtitle
Hichki (2018)
“HICHKI” is a story about Naina Mathur (Rani Mukerji), an aspiring teacher who suffers from Tourette Syndrome. After numerous rejections, she lands her dream job as a full-time teacher and gets assigned a class of students who can’t seem to keep out of trouble. Naina must do whatever she can to ensure that her students realise their true potential, and defy all the odds against them. (116 mins)
Director/s: Siddharth P Malhotra
Language (Subtitles): Hindi, with English subtitles
Hindi Medium (2017)
Raj and Mita yearn to get Pia, their daughter, educated from a reputed school. When they learn that their background is holding her back, they do everything to ensure that she gets into the school. ( 132 mins)
Director/s: Homi Adajania
Language (Subtitles): Hindi
Shala [School] (2011)
Set in the 70’s in rural India, four 9th grade kids were writing their destiny. Joshi (14) is in love with Shirodkar (14), a beautiful girl. Both go to the same school, and study in the same class. faced with the age old question “What is love anyway?”, Joshi goes through a series of events just to let the girl know about his feelings towards her. Joshi’s friends on the other hand are going through the same phase of life. The difference is all four of them come from a different cultural and family background. (106 mins)
Director/s: Sujay Dahake
Language (Subtitles): Marathi
Fandry [Pig] (2014)
Fandry is a fictional story set in the background of caste discrimination depicting the love of a 13-year-old boy Jabya who falls in love with a upper caste girl in his school
Director/s: Nagraj Manjule
Language (Subtitles): Marathi
Pistulya (2009)
Story about a village boy’s struggle for education in a caste ridden society. (18 mins)
Director/s: Nagraj Manjule
Language (Subtitles): Marathi
Aggedu Nayaga [Our Mother Tongue]
Directed by school teacher Sajan Sindhu, this short film is a fictional take on about home and school language tussles and negotiations among students of tribal communities of Attapadi, Kerala, India. Part 1 and Part 2. (30 mins)
Director/s: Sajan Sindhu
Language (Subtitles): Multiple Languages with English subtitles
Sarkari Hiriya Prathamika Shaale-Kasaragodu [Government Primary School, Kasargod] (2018)
A group of children study in a Kannada-medium school in a village in Kerala. When greedy government officials try to shut down the school, the children band together to save their school. Movie won the National award for best children’s film. (177 min)
Director/s: Rishab Shetty
Language (Subtitles): Kannada with English subtitles
International Films
Up Series (1964 onwards)
The Up series of documentary films follows the lives of ten males and four females in England beginning in 1964, when they were seven years old. The first film was titled Seven Up!, with later films adjusting the number in the title to match the age of the subjects at the time of filming. 7 Up , 14 Up , 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, 49 Up, 56 Up, 63 Up Season 1 (9 Parts)
Director/s: Michael Apted, Paul Almond
Language: English
Up Series - South Africa
The South Africa ‘Up’ series. Meet a group of young South Africans as they grow up through the country’s dramatic political changes. (4 Parts)
Language (Subtitles): English
Film Playlists:
Educating Indonesia (2013)
Responding to its critics, the Indonesian government is introducing a new curriculum in an effort to simplify education, slash drop-out rates and produce more PhDs. One of the government’s most controversial proposals has been to abolish or postpone the teaching of science, geography and English in elementary schools and to instead introduce compulsory subjects that promote national identity and patriotic values.
Language (Subtitles): English
Homework (1989)
In this documentary, Kiarostami asks a number of students about their school homework. The answers of some children show the darker side of the method of education that stresses on homework. (86 mins)
Director/s: Abbas Kiarostami
Language (Subtitles): Persian with English subtitles
Turtles Can Fly (2004)
Near the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of an American invasion, refugee children like 13-year-old Kak (Ebrahim), gauge and await their fate. (97 mins)
Director/s: Bahman Ghobadi
Language (Subtitles): Kurdish with English subtitles
Entre les Murs [The Class] (2008)
Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighbourhood. (128 mins)
Director/s: Laurent Cantet
Language (Subtitles): French with English subtitles
Les Quatre cents coups [ 400 Blows] (1959)
One of the defining films of the French New Wave, it displays many of the characteristic traits of the movement. Written by Truffaut and Marcel Moussy, the film is about Antoine Doinel, a misunderstood adolescent in Paris who struggles with his parents and teachers due to his rebellious behavior. Filmed on location in Paris and Honfleur, it is the first in a series of five films in which Léaud plays the semi-autobiographical character. (99 mins)
Language (Subtitles): French with English subtitles
Director/s: François Truffaut
Salmer fra Kjøkkenet [ Kitchen Stories] (2003)
The film captures the nuances of Research Methodology and participant observation. Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway to study Norwegian men, in an effort to help optimize their use of their kitchens. Folke Nilsson is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik. By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire’s chair in Isak’s kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. (95 mins)
Director/s: Bent Hamer
Language (Subtitles): Norwegian with English subtitles
Etre et Avoir [Translation: To Be and To Have] (2002)
It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Mr Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.
Director/s: Nicolas Philibert
Duration: 104 mins
The Inconvénient Truth behind Waiting for Superman (2010)
A group of New York City public school teachers and parents wrote and produced this documentary in response to Davis Guggenheim’s ‘Waiting for Superman.’ The film provides a critique of an increasingly free-market driven education system, the undermining of teacher unions and overall faith in the idea that charter schools are just what the country needs. (79 mins)
Director/s: Mollie Bruhn and others
Language (Subtitles): English
The Wire (Season 4) (2006)
The focus of the fourth season shifted between a local school, the mayoral election, police department politics and action on the street corners. (13 episodes)
Language (Subtitles): English
Au revoir les enfants [Goodbye Children] (1987)
A French boarding school run by priests seems to be a haven from World War II until a new student arrives. Occupying the next bed in the dormitory to the top student in his class, the two young boys begin to form a bond. (104 mins)
Director/s: Lious Malle
Language (Subtitles): French with English subtitles
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2022)
An aspiring singer living with his grandmother in the capital of Bhutan dreams of getting a visa to relocate to Australia. (110 mins )
Director/s: Pawo Choyning Dorji
Language (Subtitles): English, Dzongkha
Pro Dia Nascar Feliz [For a better day] (2007)
In five different schools in three cities in Brazil, wealthy and poor teenagers talks about their school, life projects and concerns during a crucial phase of their education. Teachers also reveal their daily work routines, contributing to the construction of complex portrait of inequality and violence in educational environment of different schools in Brazil. (88 mins)
Director/s: Joao Jardim
Language (Subtitles): Portuguese with English Subtitles
ExamiNation (2011)
A short documentary about the notorious college entrance examination in South Korea. The film unveils how one exam can dictate a culture and lifestyle in a country. (21 mins)
Director/s: Judy Suh
Language (Subtitles): Korean with English subtitles
Salut Y'all: African Teachers on the Bayou (2013)
Louisiana is known also as the most Francophone state in the US. But very little is known of the African teachers who contribute to the promotion and preservation of the French language heritage in Louisiana. The work of these teachers helps sustain Louisiana’s cultural diversity while bridging the gap between old and young generations of French speakers. (15 mins)
Director/s: Boukary Sawadogo
MAESTRA [Teacher] (2012)
Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island – and found themselves deeply transformed in the process. (33 mins)
Director/s: Catherine Murphy
A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021)
A university student in India writes letters to her estranged lover. These letters grant insight into the drastic changes taking place around her and the life of her and her fellow students. (99 mins)
Director/s: Payal Kapadia
Language (Subtitles): English subtitles
The Right to Read (2023)
The Right to Read shares the stories of a courageous activist, a teacher, and two American families who fight to provide our youngest generation with the most foundational indicator of life-long success: the ability to read. (80 mins)
Director/s: Jenny Mackenzie
Language: English
Makongo (2020)
A cinematic portrait of two young Aka pygmies from the Central African Republic. In their efforts to improve education for their communities, they discover that city dwellers are not as altruistic as they are themselves. (72 min.)
In My Blood it Runs (2019)
Ten-year-old Dujuan is a child-healer, a good hunter and speaks three languages. As he shares his wisdom of history and the complex world around him we see his spark and intelligence. Yet Dujuan is ‘failing’ in school and facing increasing scrutiny from welfare and the police.
(84 min.)
Director/s: Maya Newell with cast members as collaborating directors
Language (Subtitles): English, Aboriginal English, Arrernte with English Subtitles