Bulgaria’s Oscar Entry ‘Blaga’s Lessons’ Sells In Key Territories

Blaga’s Lessons, Bulgaria’s International Film Oscar submission, has set a release in multiple countries.

The film. written and directed by Stephan Komandarev, will hit theaters in Germany in January through distributor JIP Film. Following an October 20 limited release, Blaga’s Lessons will go wide in Bulgaria on Dec. 15th. Its domestic distributor is A Plus Films.

More from Deadline

Additionally, the film is premiering in Spring 2023 in Sweden with distributor November, January 2023 in Taiwan with Swallow Wings, with releases also planned in Spain with Filmin, Greece with Danaos, and Slovakia with Association of Slovak Film Clubs.

Blaga’s Lessons also will be carried by Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO/Max and Cinemax in the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Albania, Bulgaria and Adriatic countries.

The movie world premiered in July at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix for Best Film as well as Best Actress for the lead Eli Skorcheva in her return to the screen after thirty years. Since then, Blaga’s Lessons has been featured at sixteen festivals, winning seventeen awards, most recently the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Rome International Film Festival. It also has been selected for the 2023 European Film Awards.

Blaga’s Lessons, the third film in a trilogy by Komandarev about social ills in Bulgaria’s post-communist society, is a thriller which follows Blaga (Skorcheva), a retired Bulgarian language teacher, through a harrowing emotional journey as she navigates the dangerous world of phone scams. You can watch a new trailer, released by Heretic, below. The film was produced by Katya Trichkova and Argo Films.

Komandarev’s previous credits also include the Oscar-shortlisted The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (2008) and another Bulgarian Oscar entry, The Judgement (2014).

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.