Bugs (2016)

In an effort to determine their sustainability as a food source, two chefs travel throughout the world tasting insects.

Director:

Andreas Johnsen

Stars:

Josh Evans, Roberto Flore, Ben Reade

4 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Josh Evans	...	Himself
Roberto Flore	...	Himself
Ben Reade	...	Himself

Storyline

In an effort to determine their sustainability as a food source, two chefs travel throughout the world tasting insects.

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Plot Keywords:

food | bugs | one word title | 

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Taglines:

A Gastronomic Adventure with Nordic Food Lab by Andreas Johnsen

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Genres:

Documentary

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Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

Netherlands Denmark France Germany

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 September 2017 (USA)

Also Known As:

Robaki

Filming Locations:

Denmark

Box Office

Gross USA:

$3,742, 9 November 2017

Company Credits

Production Co:

Rosforth, Danish Documentary Production, Clin d'Oeil

Technical Specs

Runtime:

73 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Quotes

Ben Reade: Who cares how much money you have in your bank account if you have really tasty food in your garden?

User Reviews

An important and delightful documentary to devour

Normally I do not have the habit of writing movie reviews since I consider myself a bad writer (and just plain lazy), yet I do feel a strong need to write one for Bugs (obviously I'm going to be the first user who writes a review on it, where are the other viewers??)

BUGS is a documentary that follows the research team of Nordic Food Lab's Edible Insects Project as they explore different insect cuisine cultures around the globe and discuss the problems and possibilities existing in the food systems. Before going to the movie, I made the extra effort of repeatedly reminding my friend not to buy any snack. After all, this documentary is all about people shovelling down giant larvas, worms, ants and bees etc... So it didn't seem like a very sensible thing to do if we were gonna eat during the movie without carrying any vomit bag. But I couldn't be more wrong. Not only were the insects eating scenes nowhere near disgusting, but we even found some of them very intriguing and even to the extent of being appetizing. The satisfaction and the joy that present themselves on the smiles and laughter of the local people when they discover and enjoy the insects are just amazing to watch. And the way they treat insects as real food and cook them with such enthusiasm and dedication is an equal amazement. I also absolutely love how the main characters make really vivid and unexpectedly interesting descriptions of the flavours of the different insects they have tasted along their global exploration. Some of them sound so magical that my friend and I wished we were there to verify the magic with our own taste buds.

I was not only wrong about the insects eating scenes, but I was wrong about the whole movie. It turns out that the movie goes a lot deeper than just watching people digging some insects out deep from the earth and then eating them cooked or alive. There are a lot of discussion about the possible good and harm of the rapidly attention grabbing insect eating culture. This is also another thing that makes me appreciate this movie so much. It is very honest about the limitations and the controversy of what they (the research team) want to achieve. They don't just blindly advocate insect eating; instead they take into consideration the possible outcome of a profitable insect protein industry and reflect on the necessity of insect eating.

My only complaint for this documentary is that it is way too short. There are a lot more insect cooking and eating footages that are not shown in the movie. I would have loved to sit for another hour or so to watch more of them if it wasn't for the murdering air conditioning and my carelessness of never remembering to bring a jacket to the cinema.