30/11/2025
We are deeply grateful to the After Malaria team for their kind invitation to our members to join the first screening of “The Flycatcher" - the extraordinary documentary by Khalil (Avi) Betz-Heinemann and Johan Duchateau.
This powerful piece of work sits at the heart of the After Malaria project - a medical anthropology project, and it is nothing short of inspiring.
Drawing from the remarkable story of —the first country in the world to intentionally eliminate malaria—it brings to life the untold history of Mehmet Aziz, the first Director of Public Health/Hygiene Services during colonial times, and the collective effort of sanitary officers, labourers, and affected communities who made this achievement possible.
What unfolds on screen is not just the story of one man, but the stories of so many people, of the land itself, and of a “past not forgotten but not really remembered either.” A truly inspirational piece of ethnographic , , and .
As one person in the film reflects, “Cypriots don’t like history unless it is political history.” Yet this documentary achieves something rare: it tells a (hi)story through the eyes of “the people of our childhood,” where colonial and political undercurrents may be present, but never overshadow the human .
Instead, it brings forth stories and histories—merging past and present, inviting us to think of the future— and layered with truth, emotion, and so many alternative interpretations of events, but even more so their visible and not so visible impacts.
The evening was beautifully enriched by two additional experiences:
■ A preview of Othello’s Fever – an immersive walkthrough created in a game engine, by the Shameru collective, drawing on Shakespeare’s Othello and the multilayered histories of Cyprus. A dreamlike encounter with the island’s artistic, cultural, and epidemiological legacies.
■ A concert by Burcu and Evren Karagöz – featuring songs in Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and even a Finnish folk song, culminating in her new composition Sinekci Aziz Efendi ve Arkadaşları, created for and performed in the documentary, honouring the history of malaria cessation in Cyprus and her personal connection to the Aziz family.
A brief note on the wider After Malaria project, by the University of Finland:
This initiative revisits the histories of cessation in Cyprus and Finland. By weaving together art, science, public health, ecology, labour, and community memory, the project creates new ways of thinking about vector-borne diseases and today’s public health challenges. It fosters dialogue between past and present, between countries and communities, and invites us to rethink how we understand health development and societal change.
Read more: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/after-malaria/
Our warmest thanks once again to the entire After Malaria team for an evening that was moving and truly thought-provoking.
We look forward to the opportunity to screen the documentary across academic institutions in Cyprus, creating much-needed spaces where students of clinical and health sciences (public health, medicine, nursing) can engage with students from the social sciences, natural sciences, and the arts—cultivating the kind of interdisciplinary that this story so powerfully invites.
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