The Substitute is the story of a teacher who goes on a journey of self-discovery when he accepts a teaching job in a working-class neighborhood.
When the Toronto Film Festival organizers invited director Diego Lerman to present his newest film, the director was included in the Special Presentations section reserved for high-profile premieres and leading filmmakers such as Sam Mendes, Mia Hansen-Løve, Martin McDonagh, Darren Aronofsky, Stephen Frears, and Steven Spielberg.
The Argentinian filmmaker has 6 completed features since his debut in 2002, with Suddenly. The film won 3 awards at the Locarno Film Festival. The Substitute is his most complex film and his most personal for several reasons. The film touches on the issue of education, something that, as a former college professor, is very close to him. In addition, his daughter Renata, a newcomer at 11, plays one of the main roles. She won a Best Actress Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
In the movie, Juan Minujin – one of the most respected Argentinian actors and whom you might recall from the Golden Globe-nominated The Two Popes, in which he played the young version of Jorge Bergoglio – is Lucio, a teacher of literature. He is going through financial difficulties. When he is invited to take a job in a high school located in a working-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires, he accepts it out of pure necessity. Once there, and through contact with a reluctant group of students, he will discover a side of his personality he never knew he had.
Lucio will also realize how great his father had been in his work for the neighborhood – his father, known as the Chilean (Alfredo Castro), was determined to help kids achieve their true potential. This realization allows Lucio to feel close to his father in a way he never experienced before.
Lerman completed his cast with Spanish actress Barbara Lennie, Rita Cortese, and María Merlino (partner of Diego and mother of Renata). In an interview with GoldenGlobes.com shortly before the world premiere of The Substitute in Toronto, Lerman explained why the film was so special for him: “The work of the teachers is something that touches my heart. I believe they play a formative role in the life of people. It’s essential, sometimes for good and others for bad. I’m very grateful to some teachers that I had, in the same way that I had students who were very grateful to me. In this two-way connection that’s implicit in teaching there’s always personal growth. For all of these reasons, I was convinced that the subject was perfect to create a beautiful movie. The challenge was to find which one. The tale of a teacher in the lower-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires invited many roads to take,” he said.