Festivals:

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2023
São Paulo International Film Festival, 2023
BFI London Film Festival, 2023
Tribeca Film Festival, 2023
Vancouver International Film Festival, 2023

Award: Grand Prix - Stephan Komandarev, Karlovy Vary 2023 Best Actress - Eli Skorcheva, Karlovy Vary 2023 Prize of the Ecumenial Jury, Karlovy Vary 2023 Honorable Mention: Best Canadian Documentary, Best BC Film, VIFF 2023 Winner: Audience Award (Spectrum), VIFF 2023 Honorable Mention: Jury Prize - Best Interpretation, São Paulo 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.

Directors Bio: Stephan Komandarev graduated in Film & TV directing at the New Bulgarian University (1999). His works include award-winning feature and documentary films. He is a lecturer at the Film Department of the New Bulgarian University, Sofia (since 2008). He is a 2011 EAVE graduate and a Member of the European Film Academy, Bulgarian Film Director’s Association and Bulgarian Film Producers’ Association.

Sales Agent: Heretic Outreach

Drama
India Premiere