Plot: 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
Alternative Plot: When a retired, recently widowed teacher falls prey to a phone scam, she's left robbed of her life savings and without any money for her late husband's grave. Her life turns upside down when she realizes that there's no way of gaining her money back, up until she receives an alluring, yet suspicious offer for work. The tables turn as she takes matters into her own hands and cash begins rolling in, this time claiming her most prized attribute: her values, as she slowly and surely transforms into the scammer herself. In this eerie suspense drama, Stephan Komandarev ("Directions", Un Certain Regard 2017) chronicles step by step the journey of a woman swirling into the vicious cycle of the dog-eat-dog reality outside her window.
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