We Shall Overcome

Denmark, 1969. Frits is thirteen, at a school out in the country. The headmaster is of the old school: beatings, humiliation, fear. Frits's father is ill and things at home are not good either. One day the headmaster beats the boy deaf in one ear. Frits complains, and the school, the parents and the town all stand behind the headmaster. Around the same time he is hearing Martin Luther King on the radio. The boy will not drop it, and the matter goes as far as a court. Niels Arden Oplev directs the Danish film; a hundred and five minutes, based on a true story, with Bent Mejding and Anders W. Berthelsen in the cast. It came back from the festivals with a pile of awards.