Culture 3 min read By Morgan Griffin
Lightdox Acquires World Sales Rights to Gabriel Tejedor's Documentary The Big Boom!
Lightdox has picked up world sales rights to The Big Boom!, Swiss filmmaker Gabriel Tejedor's documentary about a Bulgarian town drawn into shifting European geopolitics, ahead of its premiere at IDFA in Amsterdam.
Lightdox has acquired world sales rights to The Big Boom!, a documentary by Swiss filmmaker Gabriel Tejedor that will have its world premiere in the Frontlight section of the IDFA festival in Amsterdam. The deal was announced ahead of the premiere, placing the film in the hands of a sales company as it heads into one of the most closely watched documentary showcases in the world.
The film is set in a Bulgarian town that has been pulled into a shifting European geopolitical order. According to the reporting, the local arms production there is reportedly tied to Ukraine's front lines, a connection that gives the community a place in a conflict far from its own borders. Tejedor's documentary focuses on the contradictions that emerge within that community as a result, rather than offering a single explanation of what the town represents. The filmmaker's approach centers on the people living with those contradictions day to day, rather than on the broader conflict alone.
The acquisition arrives in a busy stretch for film sales. Buena Vista International has acquired Latin American rights to Mare Nostrum, the film directed by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat and starring Antonio Banderas. HanWay Films is handling sales on Mare Nostrum at the AFM market. Separately, Playtime is launching sales on The Blondes at AFM, a crime thriller directed by Carlota Pereda and starring Ester Expósito and Claudia Salas, both known from Netflix's Elite. The Blondes gives Expósito and Salas a genre vehicle that moves them beyond the teen drama that first brought them to international audiences.
Festival and market activity also extends to smaller titles. Risa and the Wind Phone, directed by Juan Cabral, won the audience award in the Gems section of the Miami Film Festival. The film follows a young woman who tries to contact her deceased father, a premise that has drawn audiences at the festival. Taken together, the announcements show the range of projects moving through international festivals and sales markets this season, from European documentary work on geopolitics to genre cinema and personal drama, each finding its route to buyers and audiences in a different way.
Source: deadline.com
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