…a documentary that is funny, poetic and political, all at the same time. -DOX Magazine
The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories
New Zealand Premiere
Problemat s komarite i drugi istorii
Bulgaria 2007 / 100min. / Bulgarian, Italian, German with English subtitles.
Director Andrey Paounov. Producer Martichka Bozhilova.
In the Bulgarian city of Belene, everyone talks about the “zanzar” problem — a particularly vicious mosquito with a very painful bite. Perhaps the reason everyone talks about mosquitoes is to avoid thinking about its past dark history of what happened on a nearby island during the Communist era or that after 25 years, the country’s second nuclear plant has not as yet been completed. With a delightful eye for the eccentric, the unexpected and the tragic, director Andrey Paounov of the critically acclaimed Georgi and the Butterflies, presents a witty and disturbing documentary about a haunted corner of the world and its colourful inhabitants.
Paounov chose to focus on the smallest of creatures — the mosquito — as a way of exploring the bigger issues: what are we here for? How do we best live our lives? And how do you keep biting insects the size of crickets from sucking the lifeblood from the town?
Belene features characters that could have come out of Spinal Tap — people who wave a vacuum through the air before going to bed, people who spray the town in dense clouds of insecticide, and people who set fire to buckets of weeds before milking their cow, just to get some peace. In the film’s stunning closing sequence, the town’s children enthusiastically romp in the noxious clouds puffed from the pest exterminator’s truck.
The resulting film is beguilingly rich with unexpected tensions and juxtapositions that are both humorous and troubling.
The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories / Problemat s komarite i drugi istorii Trailer
Find similar films by topic: Ethnic, Social/Human Interest.
Festivals and Awards
- Best Documentary, L'Alternativa - Barcelona Independent FF 08
- Award in OFF Docúpolis section, Docúpolis IDFF 08
- Grand Prize, Sunny Side of the Doc 08
- Best fill-length non-feature film – Shaken’s Stars IFF Almaty, Kazakhstan 08
- Best Documentary – ASTERFEST, Strumica, Macedonia 08
- First Prize for a full-length documentary, DOCUMENTA, Madrid 08
- Best Documentary, MEDIAWAVE Festival of music and cinema, Hungary 08
- Honorary Mention, goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, Wiesbaden 08
- Zagreb Dox 08
- True/ False FF, Cleveland 08
- One World, Prague 08
- Full Frame FF 08
- Grierson Award, British Film Institute Awards 07
- Grand Prix, Docufest, IDFF, Prizren, Kosovo 07
- Best Documentary - Special Mention, Karlovy Vary IFF 07
- Special Mention, BRITDOC, Oxford 07
- From A to A Award, Motovun FF 07
- Toronto IFF 07
- Pusan IFF 07
- London IFF 07
- TEMPO Stockholm 07
- Dok Leipzig 07
- World premiere: International Critics’ Week of the Cannes FF 07
Film Reviews
The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories (Jay Weissberg, Variety)
19-May-2007 Alternately delightful and disturbing, "The Mosquito Problem & Other Stories" features characters who would do Christopher Guest proud, but at its core lies a troubling…
The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories (Jason Anderson, Eye Weekly)
24-Sep-2007 Belene is a “pretty little town on the Danube,” at least according to the lyrics of a song that goes on to praise the place’s “nuclear future.” That construction on the power plant was abandoned long ago is just one of the problems facing Belene in this Bulgarian doc. Memorably odd and beautifully shot, Andrey Paounov’s film opens with Errol Morris-style interviews with the town’s more colourful citizens – each of whom has his or her own way of coping with that mosquito problem – but gradually takes on a more troubling aspect as darker truths are revealed about Belene’s past.
The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories (Emma Baus, DOX Magazine)
28-Sep-2007 By looking at his country Bulgaria through a little town, Andrey Paounov manages to give us a general look at the downfall of a Soviet era that has disappeared nowadays. His second full-length documentary after Georgi and the Butterflies, which won the silver wolf in Amsterdam (IDFA 2004), also shows the will of Critic’s Week to choose a documentary for its Cannes selection that takes a daring approach to a social issue. The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories is structured like a puzzle with an element of absurd poetry in each of its pieces – which provoked lots of laughter in the audience. The small town of Belene, located next to the Danube River, is attacked by mosquitoes resistant to any treatment. Musicians, pom-pom girls, retired persons and NATO military personnel – all the inhabitants are observed through the way they react to the insects, the invisible enemies that even the hunters are incapable of destroying. All these characters seem slightly crazy – we even wonder how people that strange can really exist – but all of them are regarded with genuine tenderness. If they speak about mosquitoes, it’s just because they are reluctant to speak of anything else, but their silence is even more expressive than a long interview. The young documentarist portrays an east European town that never had the opportunity to escape the downfall of communism. The former concentration camp has now been turned into a farm with few horses and pigs. The NATO military units are filmed training how to fight. An employee at an unfinished nuclear power plant plays the guitar in front the barrier. All these places and people are symbols of the past showing the entire collapse of Eastern Europe: hope for the future seems to have vanished. Using dark humour and irony to talk about society, the director succeeds in making a documentary that is funny, poetic and political, all at the same time.
Screening in Auckland
| Time | Venue/Notes |
|---|---|
| 8:30pm | Rialto Newmarket Q&A |
| Time | Venue/Notes |
|---|---|
| 11am | Rialto Newmarket |
Other Cities
Key to symbols
- Q&A
- Filmmakers and/or the subject of the film will be attending this screening.
Programme p.42