Adventurous new Swiss doc sales outfit Lightdox has added a new football hooligan title to a slate that already includes 5 IDFA titles and one in Docs for Sale. IDFA titles include Arica, which world prems in Frontlight, and Lina Soualem’s Their Algeria (in Best of Fests).
The feature doc, No Place For You In Our Town, directed by Nikolai Stefanov, is about the rise of neo-Nazis in a small town in Bulgaria. These thugs identify strongly with the local football team. The once booming town has never recovered since the closure of the local mine. With few prospects and no sense of belonging, the young men turn to hooliganism. The football team they follow gives them a sense of identity.
The producers are Ralitsa Golemanova and Mariana Sabeva. The project was recently presented at East Doc Platform.
“We are pitching it now and will be offering it to broadcasters for co-production during Berlinale,” Lightdox sales exec Bojana Maric told Business Doc Europe.
Earlier this week, Lightdox also announced that it is selling Arica, directed by Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén. The hard-hitting documentary looks at pollution and the illegal dumping of huge amounts of toxic chemicals in a remote part of Chile. The citizens of a small town sue the Swedish mining giant responsible for the pollution.
“We got on board while the film was still in production,” Maric said of the film which Lightdox has been tracking since last year’s IDFA. Doc Society is a partner on the project and will help with the impact camping planned around the film.
Lightdox also has several documentaries in official selection in IDFA, among them Michele Pennetta’s Il mio corpo (a Dutch premiere in Best of Fests), Ulrike Ottinger’s Paris Calligrammes (in Masters), Amel Alzakout and Khaled Abdulwahed’s Purple Sea in Paradocs and Lina Soualem’s Their Algeria (in Best of Fests).
“It’s a very special moment because out of six films in our catalogue, five of them were selected for this year’s edition of IDFA,” Maric pointed out. “Festival laurels is something which bring attention to the films. It is definitely helpful, especially for a young company like us. As you can imagine, it takes time to open many doors and to introduce our work to different partners in different markets. Il mio corpo was also selected for the ACID section in Cannes earlier this summer.
The sixth film, Citizen Nobel from director Stéphane Goël, about Jacques Dubochet, the lovable Swiss scientist who wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry, is in Docs For Sale – so the company’s entire current slate is represented at IDFA in one form or other. This week, Maric and her two colleagues, Nevena Milasinovic and Anna Berthollet, have also been scouting projects in the Forum.
Lightdox, which was set up in Switzerland just under two years ago, was formerly known as Sweet Spot Docs. “Nothing changed about our work itself. It was more about the presentation.” Maric commented of the recent change of name. “To be completely honest with you, we had a problem with people pronouncing Sweet Spot Docs. That turned out to be quite tricky.”
It transpired some buyers called it Swiss Spot Docs, and assumed they sold only Swiss titles. “It’s a new name but the same team, the same set-up and the same enthusiasm!”
