Made in EU

Director: Stephan Komandarev

Cast: Gergana Pletnyova, Todor Kotsev, Gerasim Georgiev

A tense social drama exposing the inequality of labour in Bulgaria through a worker’s bout with COVID

Single mother Iva (Gergana Pletnyova) feels unwell, but can’t get sick leave from her precarious clothing factory job. When she is eventually declared the first COVID case in her small Bulgarian town, a dangerous game of accusation unravels, with the labourer shunned not only from her community but also from her home. Pletnyova gives a stunning lead performance in Stephan Komandarev’s piercing social examination, a drama with the fast pulse of a thriller that closely observes a crumbling European dream from the trampoline of the pandemic. (RAFA SALES ROSS)