The story is about a group of children in the village choir and their school teacher who are taught to obey simple absolutist values. The children are the generation that later became Nazis but Haneke delivers the message that his film is not abut Nazi it is about all forms of terrorism.

True to the Haneke style the films shows us cold repressed characters and violence. He also captures images of German society as it existed before it disappeared in the first World War.

Haneke described the film later in the press conference as being about the "roots of evil" and said he had had this theme in mind for over ten years. "The point was to show how the principle of absolutism lays the foundations for terrorism. If it is applied to an ideal, any ideal, then that ideal become inhuman." The film shows how the children come to believe they are the hand of God and they become the punishers of others who do not have the same ideals as they do.

Austrian director Haneke has seldom gone home empty handed from Cannes over the past decade with a Grand Prix in 2001 for La Pianiste and a Best Director award for Cache in 2005 and it would be a surprise if he goes home empty handed this year either

Credits

Michael HANEKE - Director

Michael HANEKE - Screenplay

Christian BERGER - Cinematography

Christoph KANTER - Set Designer

Monika WILLI - Film Editor

Jean-Pierre LAFORCE - Sound

Guillaume SCIAMA - Sound

Actors

Leonie BENESCH - Eva

Josef BIERBICHLER - Le Régisseur

Rainer BOCK - Le Docteur

Christian FRIEDEL - L'instituteur

Burghart KLAUSSNER - Le Pasteur

Steffi KÜHNERT - La femme du Pasteur

Ursina LARDI - La Baronne

Susanne LOTHAR - La Sage-femme

Gabriela-Maria SCHMEIDE - La femme du Régisseur

Ulrich TUKUR - Le Baron