Rooms of Pain in the short film ‘For Rent’”
Producer: State Puppet Theatre Stara Zagora
Concept and realization: Monkey’s Theatre
Director: Lyubomir Zhelev
Scenography and puppets: Evgenia Lacheva, Aleksandar Garalov, Petar Chekurov
Costumes: Lyubomir Zhelev, Maria Vaskova, Veska Nedeleva
Music: QsensX
Cinematographer: Elena Nikolaeva
Camera assistant: Dimitar Sulev
Editing: Andrea-Nikol Kostova
Post-production: Andrea-Nikol Kostova
Sound design: Dragomir Dimchev
Color grading: Dragomir Dimchev
Poster: Nikol Sultanova
Cast: Anna-Valeria Gostanyan, Nora Taneva, Lyubomir Zhelev
Assistant: Orlin Prodanov
Rooms-Pains in the short film “For Rent”
After the performance “Hotel” [1], which I watched here at the festival two years ago—a stage world of silences, shadows, and objects with memory—Lyubomir Zhelev takes a natural step toward the screen, this time as director of a short film. “For Rent” employs the same language of surreal miniatures and “translates” it into cinematic form. Zhelev transfers his characteristic visual minimalism from the theatre stage to the screen, where the camera expands the close-ups, the puppets “speak” even more clearly, and their emotions stretch to human scale. The result is a recognizable authorial world that changes its medium without losing its identity.
A mysterious man and woman lead us through a gallery of “room-pains,” which we might often open in our own everyday lives, only to lose our way toward the exit: hunger that turns against itself; a body that sells its silence; a childhood that won’t let go; a glossy façade covering emptiness; loneliness ending in a suicidal gesture. The metaphor of being “for rent” is the key: we enter, we empathize, we leave—but we are never the same.
The strongest quality of the film lies in its visual concept—precise manipulation of puppet-characters and cleverly arranged plasticity of spaces and light. My only reservation is that some scenes hold the rhythm longer than the story requires. This slower tempo supports the trance-like atmosphere, yet at times distances the viewer from the emotional core.
Even so, “For Rent” is a confident transition into a new form, where puppetry breathes fully on screen. From this gallery of fragility, I left with anxiety—but also with care. I ask myself: do the loneliest places have a door to the light?
I hope so.
Written by: Zhаклин Dobreva
[1] State Puppet Theatre – Stara Zagora. “Hotel – a surreal picture.” Pierrot 2023. Last modified 2023. Available at: https://pierrot-bg.com/festival/pierrot-2023/hotel-edna-surrealistichna-kartina-2712
