Germany 2025
Opening September 25, 2025

Directed by: Bernhard Jasper, Maggie Peren
Writing credits: Margit Auer, Mirjam Müntefering
Principal actors: Emilia Maier, Loris Sichrovsky, Tomomi Themann, Milan Peschel.

Miriam (Tomomi Themann) plans to stay with her friend Ida (Emilia Maier) for a few months. Together they attend the Winterstein School, which is special in that it features magical animals which can talk, e.g., crocodile, penguin, cat, fox, etc. Their teacher (Milan Peschel) surprises them with an owl and a rare animal called tarsier. All is well until it’s not: School principal, Mr. Siegmann (Justus von Dohnányi), reveals that Winterstein School is soon to shut down due to lack of students. Parallel is an upcoming dance contest called school challenge. Both Miriam’s new school, as well as her former one, will participate and Miriam is insecure where to place her loyalty, especially since her old friend and student Torben will be competing against her.

We follow Miriam and her teenager friends as they work to attract additional students, as well as win the contest and save their school. Difficult to imagine this school closing, considering that it looks much like a castle—impressive. Here the teenagers are more in the foreground than the animals, although there is a bird which sings quite frequently. This is the fourth in a film series of The School of Magical Animals, based on books by Margit Auer, which have been translated into twenty-six languages. The first film version appeared in 2021, to be followed by the second in 2022, the third in 2024, and now the fourth. which will definitely find enthusiastic viewers, considering that it is not only well made, but based on this successful series. It is fun to re-experience actor Milan Peschel, who has appeared in all four film versions and is familiar to many of us in the German TV detective series Tatort. And of course, there is Justus von Dohnányi, who has appeared in 100 films, both TV and cinema, beginning in the 1990s.  (Becky T.)