Lazarov’s previous film Aga closed the Berlinale in 2018, playing out of competition
Berlin-based Films Boutique has taken on sales for Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov’sTarika.
Lazarov’s previous film Aga closed the Berlinale in 2018, playing out of competition and was selected as the Bulgarian entry for the Oscars. His debut, 2013’s Alienation, played in Venice’s Giornate Degli Autori.
Shot on 35mm, the film centres on a young girl living with her father and her grandmother in a small hut near the border far away from the local village. Marked by her “butterfly wings”, a rare bone condition she inherited from her mother,...
Berlin-based Films Boutique has taken on sales for Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov’sTarika.
Lazarov’s previous film Aga closed the Berlinale in 2018, playing out of competition and was selected as the Bulgarian entry for the Oscars. His debut, 2013’s Alienation, played in Venice’s Giornate Degli Autori.
Shot on 35mm, the film centres on a young girl living with her father and her grandmother in a small hut near the border far away from the local village. Marked by her “butterfly wings”, a rare bone condition she inherited from her mother,...
- 1/16/2024
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Recipients also include ‘Made In EU’ the new film by Bulgaria’s Stephan Komanderev.
Made In EU, the new film by award-winning Bulgarian filmmaker Stephan Komanderev, has received €220,000 from the Leipzig-based regional German fund Mdm in its latest round of awards.
Produced by Halle-based 42Film, which also produced Karlovy Vary winner Blaga’s Lessons, the film is based on real events that took place during the Covid-19 pandemic in Bulgaria. A seamstress working in a clothing factory in a small town is at the centre of an online drama when she is labelled “patient zero” and accused of infecting her...
Made In EU, the new film by award-winning Bulgarian filmmaker Stephan Komanderev, has received €220,000 from the Leipzig-based regional German fund Mdm in its latest round of awards.
Produced by Halle-based 42Film, which also produced Karlovy Vary winner Blaga’s Lessons, the film is based on real events that took place during the Covid-19 pandemic in Bulgaria. A seamstress working in a clothing factory in a small town is at the centre of an online drama when she is labelled “patient zero” and accused of infecting her...
- 7/20/2023
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
The lessons learned in this pitch-black German-Bulgarian co-production are very grim indeed, a social-realist drama that takes an unexpectedly shocking turn at its harrowing climax. The film’s recent win at Karlovy Vary, where it took the Grand Prix in the Crystal Globe Competition, should give it a welcome boost on the arthouse circuit, but the unwary are warned that Stephan Komandarev’s latest feature packs a punch not seen since Lars von Trier or Michael Haneke in their provocative prime.
Blaga (Eli Skorcheva) is a widow, grieving after the recent death of her beloved husband Hristo, a former policeman. After saving up, she plans to buy a plot of land to bury him in, 40 days after his passing, with a custom-made double gravestone for them both. Hristo “believed in Lenin more than Jesus,” but Blaga’s desire to substitute a cross for a red star is expressly forbidden in Bulgarian law.
Blaga (Eli Skorcheva) is a widow, grieving after the recent death of her beloved husband Hristo, a former policeman. After saving up, she plans to buy a plot of land to bury him in, 40 days after his passing, with a custom-made double gravestone for them both. Hristo “believed in Lenin more than Jesus,” but Blaga’s desire to substitute a cross for a red star is expressly forbidden in Bulgarian law.
- 7/18/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
In one fell swoop, 70-year-old widow Blaga Naumova goes from being cash-strapped to cash-stripped. All her life, she’s carefully pinched pennies to accumulate a modest cushion of life savings that she’s nonetheless never been sensible enough to put in the bank; decades of scrimping amount to naught when, in a moment of terrorized madness, she caves to the threats of a phone scammer and quite literally throws her very small fortune out the window. How could you be so stupid, everyone asks her, and many in the audience are likely to echo them. But Stephan Komandarev’s damning, despairing, riveting thriller “Blaga’s Lessons” sees things another way: In a post-communist Bulgaria where women like Blaga are legally bled dry by cowboys and corrupt institutions on all sides, how is she supposed to see the difference?
Premiering in the main competition at Karlovy Vary, this is tense, tough-minded...
Premiering in the main competition at Karlovy Vary, this is tense, tough-minded...
- 7/5/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
In the opening scene of Stephan Komandarev’s harrowing drama, Blaga’s Lessons, an elderly Bulgarian woman is making a down payment on a burial plot for her recently deceased husband, a former police officer. She promises the somewhat sleazy cemetery salesman that she’ll get the rest of the money to him shortly. Since she’s a retired teacher living on a meager pension, it’s no small purchase, especially since this particular gravesite is apparently in hot demand.
But before she can finalize the deal, the 70-year-old Blaga (Eli Skorcheva, delivering a magnificent turn) falls victim to a terrible telephone scam. In a traumatic sequence, she receives a call from a man saying he’s a police officer and that she’s being targeted by a gang of thieves. He instructs her to place all her cash and even her wedding ring in a plastic bag and throw...
But before she can finalize the deal, the 70-year-old Blaga (Eli Skorcheva, delivering a magnificent turn) falls victim to a terrible telephone scam. In a traumatic sequence, she receives a call from a man saying he’s a police officer and that she’s being targeted by a gang of thieves. He instructs her to place all her cash and even her wedding ring in a plastic bag and throw...
- 7/4/2023
- by Frank Scheck
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film about a pensioner who is victim of a phone scam world premieres in Karlovy Vary’s Crystal Globe Competition.
Gaining international prominence with his 2008 festival hit The World Is Big And Salvation Lurks Around The Corner, director Stephan Komandarev has continued to make both fiction and documentary features that address inequality and injustice in his native Bulgaria.
His 2017 film Directions – a drama about the experiences of various taxi drivers over the course of one night – premiered in Un Certain Regard, while 2019’s Rounds examined the work of the police over the course of a day and a night. The...
Gaining international prominence with his 2008 festival hit The World Is Big And Salvation Lurks Around The Corner, director Stephan Komandarev has continued to make both fiction and documentary features that address inequality and injustice in his native Bulgaria.
His 2017 film Directions – a drama about the experiences of various taxi drivers over the course of one night – premiered in Un Certain Regard, while 2019’s Rounds examined the work of the police over the course of a day and a night. The...
- 7/2/2023
- by Laurence Boyce
- ScreenDaily
Bulgarian multi-hyphenate Stephan Komandarev completes his trilogy on social problems and moral ills in contemporary Bulgaria with “Blaga’s Lessons,” world premiering in Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s Crystal Globe competition. Heretic is the sales agent.
After “Directions” (2017), which centers on tough times for some Sofia taxi drivers over a long and eventful night, and “Rounds” (2019), about police officers patrolling the capital, Komandarev and his co-writer Simeon Ventsislavov use an older woman duped by a telephone scam to look at issues afflicting their parents’ generation. Komandarev says: “The Bulgarian pensioners turned out to be the real victims of the so-called ‘transition’ (the time from 1989 to today.) These people, who have worked and created persistently all their lives, have lost basic safety and security, normal food, adequate medical care, heating, etc.”
The protagonist Blaga (Eli Skorcheva) is a retired Bulgarian language and literature teacher. A recent widow, she’s worried about how...
After “Directions” (2017), which centers on tough times for some Sofia taxi drivers over a long and eventful night, and “Rounds” (2019), about police officers patrolling the capital, Komandarev and his co-writer Simeon Ventsislavov use an older woman duped by a telephone scam to look at issues afflicting their parents’ generation. Komandarev says: “The Bulgarian pensioners turned out to be the real victims of the so-called ‘transition’ (the time from 1989 to today.) These people, who have worked and created persistently all their lives, have lost basic safety and security, normal food, adequate medical care, heating, etc.”
The protagonist Blaga (Eli Skorcheva) is a retired Bulgarian language and literature teacher. A recent widow, she’s worried about how...
- 6/28/2023
- by Alissa Simon
- Variety Film + TV
Komandarev’s 2017 feature Directions premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.
Heretic has acquired world sales rights to Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev’s suspense drama Blaga’s Lessons which world premieres next month at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Komandarev’s 2017 feature Directions premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. His film The Judgement was Bulgaria’s official entry for the 2016 Oscars, while The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner was shortlisted for the Oscar’s best foreign language film category in 2010.
Blaga’s Lessons is the story of a retired, recently widowed teacher, played by Elie Skorcheva,...
Heretic has acquired world sales rights to Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev’s suspense drama Blaga’s Lessons which world premieres next month at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Komandarev’s 2017 feature Directions premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. His film The Judgement was Bulgaria’s official entry for the 2016 Oscars, while The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner was shortlisted for the Oscar’s best foreign language film category in 2010.
Blaga’s Lessons is the story of a retired, recently widowed teacher, played by Elie Skorcheva,...
- 6/8/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Komandarev’s 2017 feature Directions premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.
Heretic has acquired world sales rights to Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev’s suspense drama Blaga’s Lessons which world premieres next month at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Komandarev’s 2017 feature Directions premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. His film The Judgement was Bulgaria’s official entry for the 2016 Oscars, while The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner was shortlisted for the Oscar’s best foreign language film category in 2010.
Blaga’s Lessons is the story of a retired, recently widowed teacher, played by Elie Skorcheva,...
Heretic has acquired world sales rights to Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev’s suspense drama Blaga’s Lessons which world premieres next month at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Komandarev’s 2017 feature Directions premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. His film The Judgement was Bulgaria’s official entry for the 2016 Oscars, while The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner was shortlisted for the Oscar’s best foreign language film category in 2010.
Blaga’s Lessons is the story of a retired, recently widowed teacher, played by Elie Skorcheva,...
- 6/8/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
The coronavirus pandemic might have shut down film and television production across the globe, with many industries still struggling to relaunch with the latest health and safety protocols, but Yianna Sarri, who heads the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s industry arm, Agora, knew there would be an upside for the annual Crossroads Co-Production Forum.
“During the lockdown everywhere, people had the opportunity to stay at home and write scripts,” she said. “It was in our mind that we were going to have many submissions.”
Now in its 16th year, Agora has emerged as a leading forum for filmmakers from Southeast Europe, the Middle East, and the wider Mediterranean region, reflecting the ancient heritage of Thessaloniki as a cultural crossroads—a meeting point of East and West.
To that end, the Crossroads Co-Production Forum has gradually evolved into a de facto launching pad for films from Greece and neighboring countries. “Every year,...
“During the lockdown everywhere, people had the opportunity to stay at home and write scripts,” she said. “It was in our mind that we were going to have many submissions.”
Now in its 16th year, Agora has emerged as a leading forum for filmmakers from Southeast Europe, the Middle East, and the wider Mediterranean region, reflecting the ancient heritage of Thessaloniki as a cultural crossroads—a meeting point of East and West.
To that end, the Crossroads Co-Production Forum has gradually evolved into a de facto launching pad for films from Greece and neighboring countries. “Every year,...
- 11/4/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Five features (plus a scattering of documentaries) into his career, leading Bulgarian writer-director Stephan Komandarev has resisted cultivating a clear thematic or stylistic throughline to his oeuvre. Yet his latest, the overnight police patchwork “Rounds,” feels surprisingly close to quintessential, pulling as it does plot points, structural models and tonal switches from his previous films into one stacked crowdpleaser. Alternately wry and solemn as it follows three pairs of police officers through an eventful night’s patrol in central Sofia, “Rounds” unites several splintered mini-narratives about human trafficking, euthanasia and institutional corruption — among other hot-button topics — more cohesively and engrossingly than you might expect in its 106-minute runtime, though there’s as much soap as there is grit in the final mix.
A palpable hit with audiences upon its premiere at the Sarajevo Film Festival — where it scooped the Cineuropa Award, as well as the Best Actress jury prize for...
A palpable hit with audiences upon its premiere at the Sarajevo Film Festival — where it scooped the Cineuropa Award, as well as the Best Actress jury prize for...
- 8/23/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
The 24th Sarajevo Film Festival has awarded its top prize to Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov’s “Ága.” The Yakut-language movie, which saw its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, tells the story of a troubled Inuit family.
“Ága” won the Heart of Sarajevo on Thursday night, the festival’s prize for best feature film, which includes a €16,000 award. The movie, a co-production between Bulgaria, Germany and France, was co-written by Lazarov and Simeon Ventsislavov.
“Ága” centers on an isolated Inuit couple who hold on to their traditions while global warming and the modern world encroach. When the wife’s health deteriorates, the husband decides to fulfill her last wish by embarking on a long journey to find their daughter, Ága, who deserted the couple long ago. Variety’s Jay Weissberg called the film a “handsome paean to a dying culture.”
For the second year running, the festival...
“Ága” won the Heart of Sarajevo on Thursday night, the festival’s prize for best feature film, which includes a €16,000 award. The movie, a co-production between Bulgaria, Germany and France, was co-written by Lazarov and Simeon Ventsislavov.
“Ága” centers on an isolated Inuit couple who hold on to their traditions while global warming and the modern world encroach. When the wife’s health deteriorates, the husband decides to fulfill her last wish by embarking on a long journey to find their daughter, Ága, who deserted the couple long ago. Variety’s Jay Weissberg called the film a “handsome paean to a dying culture.”
For the second year running, the festival...
- 8/17/2018
- by Robert Mitchell
- Variety Film + TV
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