No Place for You in Our Town pulls the audience into the heads of the football hooligans from the roughest city in Bulgaria — Pernik. A once flourishing industrial center, today all that’s left is the urban legend about its citizens’ toughness — an echo of the miners’ brave and glorious past underground. Having exclusive access, Nikolay Stefanov’s camera silently follows Tsetso, a skinhead and single father, the gang leader Dado, and Mimeto, the only woman in the group. They are all devoted to helping their team rise from the last league, reliving the strength and unity of their ancestors, the miners.
Their usual lifestyle, however, gets seriously challenged when Tsetso falls ill and stays in the hospitals for months, while the decaying city faces a grave water crisis caused by corruption and crime. Amidst the serious personal and communal crises, Nikolay Stefanov’s camera peeks underneath the hooligans’ tough and rough appearance and explores their lives — and the lives of millions like them across the globe — with openness and genuine human curiosity.
SCREENINGS & AWARDS
World Premiere: CPH:DOX – Next:Wave Competition 2022
2022 Visions du Réel (Swiss Premiere)
2022 Movies that Matter (Dutch Premiere)
2022 Dok.fest Munich (German Premiere)
2022 Doc Cevennes (French Premiere)
2022 Krakow Film Festival (Polish Premiere)
2022 Sheffield DocFest (UK Premiere)
2022 Sarajevo FF
2022 Sofia Documental (Bulgarian Premiere)
2022 Nepatogus Kinas / Inconvenient Films (Lithuanian Premiere)
2022 Astra Film Festival (Romanian Premiere)
2022 DocsMX (Mexican Premiere)
2022 Bergen IFF (Norwegian Premiere)
2022 Cinemed
2022 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Estonian Premiere)
2022 Solidarity Human Rights Film Festival (Israeli Premiere)
2023 DocPoint Helsinki
2023 Bergamo Film Meeting (Italian Premiere)
2023 ethnocineca – International Documentary Film Festival Vienna (Austrian Premiere)
2023 DocsValència International Documentary Film Festival (Spanish Premiere)
2023 Beldocs (Serbian Premiere)
2023 Mammoth Lakes FF (US Premiere)
2023 Documentarist İstanbul Documentary Days
2023 Rhodope International Documentary Film Fest
PRESS
Reviews: The Film Society (BG), The Film Verdict (EN), Interviews: Le Courrier des Balkans by Nikola Radić (FR), Cineuropa (EN), Business Doc Europe (EN), Variety (EN)
AWARDS
- Best Documentary Award at Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers Awards 2023
- Best Director of a Documentary Film for Nikolay Stefanov at Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers Awards 2023
- Best Editing of a Documentary Film for Stoyan Velinov at Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers Awards 2023
- Special Award for Achievement in Documentary category at the International Festival of Red Cross and Health Films 2023
- Best Feature Documentary Award at Rhodope International Documentary Film Fest 2023
***
“Stefanov’s patient eye looks beyond that veneer of violent masculinity and finds through Tsetso, a skinhead hooligan with a Swastika on his chest and a single father, a wide range of nuance that give surprising depth to their human experience.”
Emiliano Granada, Variety
“… it is with a rare finesse that the Bulgarian director paints the portrait of several supporters of FC Miner Pernik, condensing, along the way, the history of this town located about 20 kilometers west of Sofia.” … “very promising first feature film”
Nikola Radić, Le Courrier des Balkans
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Nikolay Stefanov
Nikolay Stefanov has graduated with an MA in Cinematography in 2003 and has experimented with different visual styles and forms in his cinematography work for films, series, and TV. He directed two mid-length documentaries in 2016 and 2018. Tackling important and sensitive social topics, No Place for You in Our Town (2022) is his first feature-length documentary, having its world premiere in the Next:Wave competition at CPH:DOX 2022. Nikolay’s next documentary, Making Friends with the Idea of a Father (2023), is in development and is a part of the 2022 EURODOC program.
Filmography (selection)
Shears (2018)
The Jewel (2016)
CREDITS
Director and cinematographer Nikolay Stefanov
Editing Stoyan Velinov
Producer Ralitsa Golemanova
Production Company Smarty Pants Shooter
Co-production HBO Max
Executive producers Hanka Kastelicova and Tereza Keilova
Writers Mariana Sabeva, Nikolay Stefanov, and Ralitsa Golemanova
PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Ralitsa Golemanova
After studying Media and Journalism and European Studies, Ralitsa Golemanova explored the political side of communications in Brussels working at European Union-related organizations. She then ventured in marketing, before delving into a true passion – documentary filmmaking. Building on her multidisciplinary experience, she is producing documentaries with social relevance, which have been selected at international markets and festivals. The latest film she produced, No Place for You in Our Town (2022) by Nikolay Stefanov, had its world premiere at CPH:DOX 2022, followed by selections at Visions du Réel, Movies That Matter, DOK.fest Munich, Krakow Film Festival, and more. Ralitsa’s next documentary project, Making Friends with the Idea of a Father (2023), is in development.
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Smarty Pants Shooter
Bulgaria
hi@smartypantsshooter.com
+359 (0) 888 360806
smartypantsshooter.com
Smarty Pants Shooter is an independent production house based in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was founded in 2015 by producer Ralitsa Golemanova and director and cinematographer Nikolay Stefanov to craft creative documentaries with social impact.
The creative duo’s documentary Shears (2018) was part of several international markets and festivals. Their first feature, No Place for You in Our Town (2022), premiered at CPH:DOX 2022 in the Next:Wave competition, and is having a rich festival life at various other prestigious festivals. The duo’s next documentary project, Making Friends with the Idea of a Father (2023), is developed in the framework of the EURODOC program.
CO-PRODUCTION COMPANY
HBO Max
www.hbomax.com
