Set in post-communist Bulgaria, Blaga’s Lessons follows a recently widowed, retired teacher whose life crumbles after falling victim to a phone scam. What begins as a story of vulnerability evolves into a morally ambiguous descent into survival, where desperation redefines the boundaries of right and wrong.

Eli Skorcheva, in a quietly devastating performance, carries the entire film with her portrayal of a woman whose dignity is gradually stripped away by both grief and a society in moral decay. The strength of the film lies in its restraint: there’s no melodrama, just the cold, slow erosion of principles as Blaga is pushed toward decisions she would have once condemned in her classroom.

Director Stephan Komandarev weaves a narrative steeped in social critique, confronting the aftermath of systemic collapse and generational disillusionment. Through muted colors and deliberate pacing, the film evokes a world where old values no longer guarantee security, and the line between victim and perpetrator begins to blur.

What makes Blaga’s Lessons so haunting is its realism. The story is painfully plausible—not just in Bulgaria but anywhere the elderly are left behind in a changing world. The film doesn’t preach, but it asks uncomfortable questions about morality, necessity, and the quiet violence of poverty.

Blaga’s transformation is not sensational, but gradual and intimate, like watching a soul suffocate under layers of debt, loss, and bureaucratic coldness. And yet, there’s an eerie clarity in her choices, as if the lessons she once taught in language and ethics now return twisted by experience.

A slow-burning character study wrapped in social commentary, Blaga’s Lessons reminds us how dignity can become a luxury, and how survival sometimes demands grammar foreign to the soul. It’s a film that lingers like a question you don’t quite want to answer.