The Lesson (2014 Bulgarian film)

The Lesson
Film poster
Bulgarian	Урок
Directed by	Kristina Grozeva Petar Valchanov
Written by	Kristina Grozeva Petar Valchanov
Produced by	Magdelena Ilieva
Starring	Margita Gosheva Ivan Barnev
Cinematography	Krum Rodriguez
Edited by	Peter Valchanov
Production companies	Abraxas Film Graal Films Little Wing Productions Screening Emotions
Distributed by	Film Movement (US)
Release date	4 September 2014 (2014-09-04) (TIFF)
Running time	111 minutes[1]
Countries	Bulgaria Greece
Language	Bulgarian
Box office	$13,953[2]

The Lesson (Bulgarian: Урок, translit. Urok) is a 2014 Bulgarian drama film written and directed by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.[3]

Plot

A middle-school teacher with a young daughter has several stresses in her life: one of her students is a petty thief, her father has taken up with a much younger woman after his wife died, and her husband is an unemployed drunkard who has wasted her earnings, supposedly trying to fix a broken-down camper rather than making the mortgage payments on their home. It has all become too much, as the bank is uncooperative, dismissive, and rigid regarding her situation, so she resorts to drastic measures to save her home from foreclosure.

Cast

• Margita Gosheva
• Ivan Barnev
• Ivanka Bratoeva
• Stefan Denolyubov [fr]
• Ivan Savov
• Andreya Todorova
• Poli Angelova as The Secretary

Release

The Lesson premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on 4 September 2014 and proceeded to make its rounds at different film festivals for another year.

Critical reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 83% rating based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 7.33/10.[4] Metacritic reports a 68 out of 100 rating based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[5]

Awards and accolades

The Lesson was one of the three finalists for the 2015 European Parliament LUX Prize.[6]

References

1. "The Lesson (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 26 November 2015. Retrieved 15 October 2022.
2. "The Lesson (2015) - International Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
3. "TIFF Adds 'Clouds of Sils Maria' and 'Two Days, One Night,' Reveals 5 More Lineups". Indiewire. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
4. "Urok (The Lesson) (2015)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
5. "The Lesson reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
6. "Mediterranea, Mustang and Urok (The Lesson) to contend for the 2015 LUX Film Prize" (Press release). European Parliament. 24 July 2015. Retrieved 15 October 2022.

External links

• The Lesson at IMDb