Keyword School Excursion

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

Beyond the scheduled programme of a school trip, three teenagers find ways to pass the time. Between tenderness, boredom and rejection they all try to find their own place in the group.

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. 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, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

The film centres around a group of schoolchildren navigating the complexities of friendship, trust, and honesty. At its heart is a thoughtful and suppressed boy with a learning disability whose interactions with his classmates oscillate between evoking tenderness and triggering aggression.

A school teacher on a remote island has to convince skeptical parents to allow him to take his class of young children to Seoul to experience modern, urban civilization for the first time.