Once in a Lifetime

A dedicated history teacher at a French high school uses lessons of the Holocaust in an effort to motivate her troubled students in this uplifting schoolhouse drama based on a true story. A teacher with 20 years of experience is determined to give the best education she can to her underprivileged inner-city pupils. Overcoming their apathy, however, is proving to be more difficult than expected. Frustrated but undaunted, she challenges her multicultural classroom with a unique assignment: a national competition on the theme of child victims of the Nazi concentration camps. The project is initially met with extreme resistance, until a face-to-face encounter with a Holocaust survivor changes the class’s attitude dramatically. Despite their long-shot odds of winning, these once-rebellious teens soon begin to see one another – and themselves – in a whole new light. A potent and moving antidote to the devaluation of education in an age of ignorance, Once in a Lifetime demonstrates the enduring impact of the Holocaust in transforming future generations.