Video & On Demand - Glory DVD and Download
Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s follow-up to The Lesson (also a New Wave Films release) is a social parable about a humble man who gets unwillingly promoted, and ends up sacrificed.
Railway linesman Tsanko Petrov (Stefan Denolyubov) discovers millions of lev on the train tracks. When he reports the money rather than pocketing it, his co-workers label him the “fool of the nation,” but the Ministry of Transport—currently embroiled in a scandal—takes the opportunity to parade their new hero. Little do they know that Tsanko suffers from a debilitating stutter and might not be a PR person’s dream of an example of Bulgarian honesty and responsibility to parade on TV.
But compared to the intense and driven Julia Staikov (Margita Gosheva from The Lesson), he’s an angel. When Julia removes his watch—a Russian-made Slava (Glory), inscribed and presented to him by his father—for the ceremony to present him with an improved digital model, it sets off a chain of events that threatens to bring down the Ministry thanks to a combination of corruption, irresponsibility and arrogance..
Winner Best International Feature Film Edinburgh Film Festival 2017
Kristina Grozeva, born in Bulgaria in 1976, graduated in Journalism at the University of Sofia in 2000 and in Film and TV Directing at the National Academy for Theater and Film Art in 2005. She has received several award for her short films, Birds of Heaven (Best Fiction Debut, Bulgarian Film Academy Awards 2008), and Gap (Special mention, Media School International Film Festival, Lodz 2009).
In 2008, Petar Valchanov (born in 1982) also graduated in Film and TV Directing at the NATFA. Shock, his first short film, was selected in the student program at Karlovy Vary Film Festival (2001), and Resurrection won the Best Film award at the International Student Film Festival in Velingrad (2003). Petar Valchanov and Kristina Grozeva have directed the documentary Parable of Life (2009) together, followed by the award winning TV feature Forced Landing. Recently they wrote and directed the short film Jump, which received numerous prestigious awards, among them the European Film Awards 2013 at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and the Excellence Award for Best Picture at Busan International Short Film Festival 2013. Glory is their follow-up to The Lesson.
Kristina Grozeva
Shorts
2008 Birds of Heaven
2009 Gap
Petar Valchanov
Shorts
2001 Shock
2003 Resurrection
Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov
Shorts
2013 Jump
Documentary
2009 Parable of Life
Feature-length film
2014 The Lesson
2016 GloryDirectors | Kristina GROZEVA and Petar VALCHANOV |
Script | Kristina GROZEVA, Petar VALCHANOV |
and Decho TARALEZHKOV | |
Photography | Krum RODRIGUEZ |
Art Direction | Vanina GELEVA |
Costumes | Kristina TOMOVA |
Sound | Ivan ANDREEV |
Producers | Kristina GROZEVA, Petar VALCHANOV, |
Konstantina STAVRIANOU and Irini VOUGIOUKALOU | |
Julia STAYKOVA | Margita GOSHEVA |
Tsanko PETROV | Stefan DENOLYUBOV |
Valeri | Kitodar TODOROV |
Kiril KOLEV | Milko LAZAROV |
Minister KANCHEV | Ivan SAVOV |
Porter | Hristofor NEDKOV |
Galya | Mira ISKAROVA |
Bulgaria/Greece | 2016 |
101 mins, 5.1 | certificate 12A |
'Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's astutely human drama may well be the best new film in cinemas this week...a witty, beautifully acted fable.'
Guy Lodge, The Standard
'This mordant satire feels as if it could be an update of a Tolstoy story.'
Steve Rose, Guardian Guide, 5 Best Films
★★★★
'Compelling drama'
Leslie Felperin The Guardian
★★★★
'Gripping political drama.'
Allan Hunter, The Express
'Sharply executed, superbly performed'
Jordan Mintzner, Hollywood Reporter
'Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s witty and ingeniously crafted follow-up to The Lesson (2014) is a snapshot of a contemporary Bulgaria plagued by injustice and corruption.'
Yonca Talu, Film Comment
'A hard-edged PR woman happy to hide government corruption indifferently destroys an honest worker’s dignity in this worthy follow-up to the directors’ award-winning 'The Lesson.'
Jay Weissberg, Variety
'Another stiletto-sharp report on the state of modern Bulgaria from the directors of the equally tense and insightful The Lesson.'
Allan Hunter, Screen International
'This incisive, funny cinematic parable, shot and edited in a disarming, documentarylike style.'
Glenn Kenny, The New York Times
★★★★
‘It feels incongruous to claim that Glory is a funny, what with its focus on institutional corruption and the constant threat of violence in a society unaccustomed to the competitiveness of a market economy, but it is, with Tzanko's predicament approached with an unlikely sense of humour.’
Patrick Gamble, Cinevue
'The film's rough-hewn naturalism belies an exquisite sense of pace and sneaky breed of gallows humor.'
Blunt and methodical, and much like the work of the auteurs of the Romanian New Wave, it generates its suspense from the inevitability of an outcome that simultaneously jostles corrupt but powerful institutions and makes unwitting monsters of those who try to combat it.'
Christopher Gray, Slant magazine
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Interview with Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov
Video interview with Petar Valchanov
Audio interview with Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov (Fred FM)
Interview with Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov (4 3 Film)