The Teacher | The Student
May 1936. A young teacher arrives in a village in the mountains of Cádiz to fulfill her dream of teaching, without imagining that the Spanish Civil War will make her a victim of Francoist repression, keeping her away from the classroom for decades. Thirty years later, an unexpected visit gives her the chance to reclaim her place in the world.
Year 1936. Eulalia Morales, “Lali,” a young teacher from Seville, arrives at her first post in Alcalá del Valle, a small town in Cádiz, with a clear dream: to change the world from the classroom. There she meets Juana Ochoa, a strong and free-minded teacher, pregnant by a union leader. An intense friendship develops between them, bound by their passion for teaching and their desire for a public, secular, and progressive school. All of this in a deeply polarized environment, torn between republicans and conservatives.
Then the Civil War breaks out. Lali, who had returned to Seville to be with her parents, goes back to the village to continue teaching. The town is under control of republican militias, focused on collectivizing businesses, until Franco’s army seizes Alcalá del Valle. Lali and Juana, betrayed by their neighbors, are arrested and imprisoned in Málaga. There they are subjected to experiments by Francoist psychiatrist Antonio Vallejo-Nájera, obsessed with proving the existence of a “red gene” in teachers like them. In the midst of this nightmare, Lali meets Clemente, a young orderly who cares for her and later becomes her husband.
Lali eventually secures her release, but at a steep price: she permanently loses her teaching credentials. Juana remains in prison. Her newborn daughter is handed over to the Counts of Bazán. Lali visits Juana in prison several times, until one day she is forbidden to see her again without explanation. Lali gives up, believing she will never see Juana again. For decades, she leads a quiet life, marked by the silence and frustration of being barred from the classroom.
Until 1972. A young woman named Aurora Bazán appears at her door: she has just discovered that she is adopted, Juana’s biological daughter, and wants to find her. Lali and Aurora embark on a race against time. They manage to interview two witnesses from that era: Dolores, a compassionate prison worker, and Sister María, who as a novice worked at the prison. They soon uncover part of the truth: Juana had been sentenced to death, but managed to escape with Sister María’s help. Not only that—Sister María told her which family her daughter was being given to. What Sister María did not know is that after escaping prison, Juana went straight to the Bazán household seeking work. Since then, Juana has lived in the shadows, working as a servant under the name Felisa, always beside her daughter, never revealing her true identity. Lali, Aurora, and Juana reunite in an emotional finale. Aurora fulfills her promise, helping Lali recover her teaching title and return to the classroom at last.
Amid echoes of Lali’s story emerges a new one—that of Roque, one of her most problematic pupils and protagonist of The Student, the spinoff of The Teacher. The novel takes us to 1955, where Roque, now an adult, begins his journey as a teacher in a remote school in the mountains of Seville. His purpose is clear: to give back to children what the war once stole from him, awakening in them the desire to learn and to imagine a future beyond the gray horizon of dictatorship. With patience and poetry, he strives to open the world to them beyond the walls of the classroom.
However, his methods—an inheritance from that first teacher who marked him—clash with the rigid rules imposed by the Francoist educational system. His determination to teach in freedom arouses suspicion, especially among those who defend tight control over ideas and dreams. Roque also carries a hidden past that has weighed on him since childhood: the search for something he lost forever the day Lali was arrested and he was sent to a regime boarding school. In that dark place, marked by fear and silence, Roque understood that teaching—even in the worst circumstances—could be an act of rebellion and hope.
RELEVANT FACTS: José Antonio Lucero is a teacher, writer, and YouTuber. On his channel La cuna de Halicarnaso, dedicated to knowledge dissemination (especially historical), he has gathered more than 345,000 followers.
The Teacher, already in multiple editions, is a moving and powerful historical novel that also serves as a tribute to those teachers who shape their students’ lives. A gripping, beautiful story with an unexpected twist, it has clear audiovisual potential for both film and TV, thanks to its dual timeline structure, strong female characters, and original approach within the historical memory genre.
The story combines elements of social drama with intrigue: Francoist repression of teachers, baby theft, the search for identity, and the reunion with the past. The three central female characters form a powerful triangle of protagonists, supported by a cast of charismatic and unforgettable secondary characters. Its rounded, emotional ending can sustain either the final episode of a series or the climax of a feature film.
The Student, meanwhile, has audiovisual potential as a historical drama that distances itself from intrigue and focuses instead on the most human, dramatic, and emotional aspects of the era.
AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Film, TV Movie.
LANGUAGES AVAILABLE: Spanish.
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