Film Archive

Blaga's Lessons

Crystal Globe Competition 2023 / Urotcite na Blaga / Bulgaria, Germany 2023

Synopsis

Blaga is a seventy-year-old recently widowed former teacher and a woman of firm morals. When telephone scammers con her out of the money that she had saved for her husband’s grave, her moral compass slowly begins to lose its bearings… Stephan Komandarev’s past films have systematically criticized the inauspicious social situation in post-communist Bulgaria, and Blaga’s Lessons is no different. In this evocative drama featuring a masterful performance from Eli Skorcheva as Blaga, Komandarev aims his lens at the lives of today’s senior citizens – a vulnerable group whom politicians so often promise the right to a dignified life… but reality is much different.

Lenka Tyrpáková

About the film

114 min / Color, DCP
World premiere
Director Stephan Komandarev / Screenplay Simeon Ventsislavov, Stephan Komandarev / Dir. of Photography Vesselin Hristov / Music Kalina Vasileva / Sound Johannes Doberenz / Editor Nina Altaparmakova / Producer Stephan Komandarev, Katya Trichkova / Production Argo Film / Coproduction 42film / Cast Eli Skorcheva, Gerasim Georgiev, Rozalia Abgarian, Ivan Barnev, Stefan Denolyubov, Ivaylo Hristov / Sales Heretic

About the director

Stephan Komandarev (1966, Sofia). Selected filmography: The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakade, 2008), Judgement (Sadilishteto, 2014), Directions (Posoki, 2017), Occupation 1968 (Okupácia 1968, 2018, co-dir., doc.), Blaga’s Lessons (Urotcite na Blaga, 2023).