Schoolplein

From a high, unchanging standpoint, a schoolyard of an Amsterdam public school is filmed in all four seasons. Sometimes the yard is empty, but usually it is populated by school children during the interval. The teenagers, of varying backgrounds and skin colours, are observed in their comings and goings and in their conversations. They hang about, make friends, squabble, stick up for themselves and feel lonely. They enter and leave the school building. In voice-over, they talk about their dreams, friendships and differences. Abdelghani, Deborah, Esmeralda, Fernando, Guillermo, Hamza, Julian, Larissa, Luciona, Omar and Ruby are the protagonists in this discreetly shot documentary, in which everyone is oneself and seems unconscious of the camera and microphone.