The Lesson (2014 Latvian film)
| The Lesson | |
|---|---|
.jpg) |
|
| The Lesson | |
| Directed by | Andris Gauja |
| Produced by | |
| Written by | |
| Starring | |
|
Production
company |
|
|
Release date
|
|
| Country | Latvia |
| Language | Latvian |
The Lesson (Latvian: Izlaiduma gads) is a Latvian narrative feature film directed by Andris Gauja and released in 2014. The film is Gauja's debut film. It tells the story of a young teacher, including her relationships with her students, their parents, and her loved ones.
An attractive Russian-language teacher takes a new job in the Latvian city of Riga, mentoring an unruly group of seniors who are approaching their graduation. She heroically wins her students' trust by holding drunken parties in her apartment and shrewdly takes control of the class; however, one of the male students then begins pursuing her. Gauja directs this suspenseful plot with subtlety and empathy, allowing this character-driven story to unfold with all the messiness of real life.
The Lesson has been shown at the following film festivals:
The development of this film began late in 2010, when Andris Gauja and Aleksandrs Grebnevs decided to continue their collaboration in the film industry and make a new film. This took place after the release of their award-winning film Family Instinct.
Andris Gauja and Lauris Gundars wrote the screenplay in collaboration.
The casting for this film was particularly difficult, because Gauja wanted to make a film that would be as realistic and credible as possible. For this reason, very few professional actors were accepted for the roles: instead, most of the characters were portrayed by amateur actors with no previous experience.
The film was shot in various real-life locations: no scenes were shot in a studio.
Most of the scenes were shot in Riga, Latvia. Two schools were used for the filming: Jāņa Poruka vidusskola and Friča Brīvzemnieka panmatskola
Tho original music for the film was written by Andris Gauja and several others.
'The Lesson' received its first screening at the Montreal Film festival and subsequently played at various other film festivals, including the Bergen International Film Festival in their 'Extraordinary Films Program', the Kinoshock Film Festival (Russia), the Chicago International Film Festival in their 'World Cinema Program' and the Connecting Cottbus Film Festival (Germany) in their 'Spectrum' section.
Many people who had viewed the film, especially women in their late 50s and 60s, were shocked. They described the movie as "outrageous" and claimed that it should not be available for public viewing. This was because they saw the film as an illustration of the worst experiences that could possibly be taken from school, and considered the film's plot unrealistic and untrue.
...
Wikipedia