‘Made In EU’ review: Stephan Komandarev follows ‘Blaga’s Lessons’ with sharp Bulgarian Covid drama

Dir. Stephan Komandarev. Bulgaria/Germany/Czech Republic. 2025. 102 minutes.  

The 12 months 2020 – perpetually related to the outbreak of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic – can really feel like yesterday, or it may possibly really feel immeasurably distant. That’s why, even after what looks as if a long-exhausted surge of that unusual crypto-genre ‘lockdown cinema’, we nonetheless want movies that critically re-examine the pandemic, and its social and political repercussions. A trenchant new contribution comes within the type of Made in EU, by well-established Bulgarian writer-director Stephan Komandarev. On this sharply-honed small-town drama, coronavirus is examined within the context of different fashionable illnesses which have accompanied it – ignorance, web hearsay, media irresponsibility and the pitiless resilience of the capitalist system. 

Bears comparability with twenty first century office dramas by Ken Loach or Stéphane Brizé

Constructed round a muted however magnetic lead efficiency by Gergana Pletnyova, Made in EU bears comparability with twenty first century office dramas by Ken Loach or Stéphane Brizé. In its spare, managed focus, it’s additionally akin to Laura Carreira’s much-praised latest On Falling – however the place that addressed the brand new social slavery of Amazon-style warehouses, Komandarev (who final directed 2023 Karlovy Fluctuate Crystal Globe winner Blaga’s Classes) reveals a extra conventional type of labour exploitation in modern Jap Europe. This Venice Highlight title ought to win consideration wherever there are shops for movies that reinvigorate the social realist custom.

Instructed in 5 chapters – the final a short, pithily ironic coda – the movie is about in a small Bulgarian city the place a middle-aged widow Iva (Pletnyova) works in a sweatshop clothes manufacturing unit. Other than the mine the place her husband labored and died, it’s the one employment on the town; which signifies that its Italian businessman proprietor successfully owns the group. 

When the motion begins, Covid-19 has already damaged out in Bulgarian capital Sofia, so everyone seems to be cautious of sniffs and coughs within the office. However the manufacturing unit’s dedication to not lose a single euro of income signifies that native medical doctors can not present employees with sick notes – and in any case, ladies like Iva can’t afford to danger any of their earnings. So she continues to work – till she collapses on the store ground.

A TV report identifies Iva because the group’s ‘Affected person Zero’, which results in her being suspended from work, and turning into a pariah – her pitiless scapegoating fuelled by social media. Her YouTuber son Micho (Todor Kotsev)  is singularly unsympathetic when she comes below the hammer, then finds himself being victimised by his personal erstwhile circle. And manufacturing unit foreman Georgiev (Gerasim Gerogiev) continues to defend the enterprise’s pursuits and his personal whereas a public well being official conducts an investigation. Iva’s solely remaining ally is retired medic Dr Rusev (Ivaylo Hristov), who has returned to work within the disaster – and who, having labored in Europe, has perception into the realities of communism and capitalism. 

The one dramatic flaw within the movie, arguably, is a prolonged one-take sequence through which Rusev imparts his hard-earned knowledge to Micho. It’s the one scene through which Komandarev and co-writer Simeon Ventsislavov lay their didactic playing cards on the desk – though it is rather a lot carried by Hristov’s peppery, avuncular enjoying and the sharply-framed camerawork of Vesselin Hristov, whose work all through offers eloquent understatement and readability.

Understatement is a key time period for this movie, which begins with a really succinct visible metaphor – a close-up of the designer labels that Iva machine-stitches onto the manufacturing unit’s luxurious clothes, bearing the phrases ‘Made in EU’. Komandarev’s competition is that this century’s post-socialist Bulgaria is something however an equal member of the European Union, however reasonably a labour useful resource that Euro-capitalism is ruthlessly wanting to suck dry – a polemic that the movie carries off with quietly commanding lucidity.