The Lesson

Gosheva dominates the screen, her expressive face leading us through a minefield of conflicting emotions toward battle-hardened resolve.

The Lesson takes a simple, and hardly extravagant premise and somehow constructs, out of this initial set-up, a gripping, increasingly desperate, and often wildly intense narrative rollercoaster.

There's an awful fascination to this bleak movie from Bulgarian writer-directors Petar Valchanov and Kristina Grozeva, whose feature debut has something of the deadpan drear and social satire of the new Romanian cinema.

The film is a criticism of the system, exploitation, corruption and usury. [Full review in Spanish]