NZIFF 2025 Craccum Coverage | The Teacher Who Promised the Sea

Review by Daniel C.

Based on a true story, Patricia Font’s new feature is an ambitious film that portrays two stories: the life of Antoni Benaige, a Spanish school teacher during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, and the present-day journey of a woman searching for the remains of her lost grandfather. 

Reminiscent of films like Dead Poets Society, Coach Carter, The Sound of Music, and Tinā, this movie portrays a maverick parental figure who enters into the lives of several children and, with unconventional methods, comes to bring about joy in the lives of the people around them. However, compared to those aforementioned examples, The Teacher Who Promised the Sea is a much more grounded and emotionally darker film. While much of the movie comes with a sweet and wholesome tang, the impactful moments of the film are silent and devastating. 

I enjoyed this movie. I felt the director had a list of goals to fulfil, and by the end, it definitely ticked all those boxes. I do have some personal gripes, though: for example, for such an ambitious film, I found that some of the emotional moments were less impactful than they could have been had the length of the film been greater. Furthermore, I also found some of the dialogue to be slightly cliché, but that may be more of an issue with the translation rather than the script. Lastly, the tone varies a lot in the film, and it’s easy to get whiplash from how different one point might feel from another. 

That being said, by the end of the movie, I was still left in tears. And would I recommend it? Yes, I would.