Nade is an honest, hard working primaryschool teacher struggling to keep her life together in a small Bulgarian town. With the home she shares with her unemployed, drunkard husband and young daughter on the brink of repossession and no money to her name Nade resorts to measures her former self, untouched by the realities of economic desperation and moral compromise, would have found depraved, as she makes one last extreme effort to secure the money she needs.
A touching social drama about a primaryschool teacher whose desperate situation compels her to make some difficult choices.
"Several years ago, the TV reported that a woman had robbed a bank in a small provincial Bulgarian town. Everybody suspected that she was a junky, a criminal... Nobody suspected that the bank robber was a decent school teacher with two master’s degrees. The way it sounds – “Teacher robbed a bank!!!” It was precisely the contradiction within this phrase that made us look behind the tabloid sensation. This event from our reality left a deep trace in us and made us ask ourselves – what makes a decent person become a criminal?" (Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov)
Kristina Grozeva in Petar Valčanov
Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov studied Film Directing at the NATFA in Sofia, Bulgaria. Their shorts have been selected for and awarded prizes at several international festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand, Bussan and Brussels. The Lesson is their first feature film.
filmography (Kristina Grozeva)
2004 Toška i Toško (short)
2005 Poslednata pastirka (Last ShepherdGirl) (short)
2006 Igra (Game) (short)
2008 Ptitzi bozhii (Birds of Heaven) (short)
2009 Gap (short)
2010 Avarijno katzane (short)
2014 Urok (The Lesson)
filmography (selection) (Petar Valčanov)
2004 Vazkresenje (short)
2005 Uloveni (short)
2008 Semejna terapija (Family Therapy) (short)
2010 Avarijno katzane (short)
2012 Skok (Jump) (short)
2014 Urok (The Lesson)