Switzerland-based sales company Lightdox is expanding its operations into France, MD Anna Berthollet told BDE during the recent FIFDH Impact Days event in Geneva. With an additional base in Annecy, the move will allow the Swiss company “to explore all the new opportunities around impact and semi-theatrical distribution, and basically to do more crafted work for films that we engage on board each year,” she told Business Doc Europe.
“Having a foot in an EU country, it’s also more beneficial in terms of our development, and also for the films. So we are structurally expanding, but with the idea of proposing more services to the films that we engage with, and to be able to apply for European funding as well, basically to be able to get funding to explore all these new opportunities,” she added.
Berthollet doesn’t intend to increase the number of films that she handles per year, currently half a dozen or so, but she is considering taking on extra personnel to look after the process of generating impact on her films. “Our ambition is to do more, to be really more proactive in implementing those impact distribution strategies worldwide with the films that we would like to handle.”
Berthollet further announced that she is handling sales on the Belarusian Motherland by Alexander Mihalkovich and Hanna Badziaka, and The Other Profile by Armel Hostiou, both world-premiering in Dox:Award. Berthollet is also handing Luke McManus’ festival favourite North Circular in Sound & Vision.
“Motherland is giving a light on how systematic violence is felt nowadays in Belarus,” Berthollet comments. “It’s a quite unique film because it gives access to understanding why so much violence is coming out of the region. And the personal stories that are shown in the film are also super strong. So for us it’s a very, very special film to present on the worldwide scene.”
“The Other Profile was one of the most surprising films that I saw this year because in terms of the form, it’s quite unique,” Berthollet added. “You can immediately understand the quality of the filmmaker and how unique his approach is, because the film is playing with humour and some very entertaining forms of storytelling. At the same time in the background it teaches on very serious issues, such as post-colonialism, the place of social media today, and how much social media impacts our lives today. It’s also a question about how our identity today is shaped also by social media. So it’s a very complex and multi-layered project, served within a very unique and, for me, unseen artistic form today. It was obvious that it was a film for our editorial line. Everything. Perfect.”
