Lightdox Acquires 'The Big Boom!' Ahead of IDFA World Premiere

Lightdox has taken world sales rights to "The Big Boom!," Swiss filmmaker Gabriel Tejedor's fifth feature documentary, ahead of its world premiere in IDFA's Frontlight program.

The film lands in Amsterdam with distribution already secured. That's the headline. The story inside is thornier.

Where does the film take us?

Kazanlak, in Bulgaria's so-called "Valley of Roses." The town grows roses and folklore alongside a major arms industry. The Arsenal factory, Kazanlak's main employer, gives thousands of people work manufacturing weapons and ammunition.

Through four residents, Tejedor traces what this industry means to the town's economy and identity. The timing is the point: arms production for Ukraine's frontlines collides with enduring ties to Russia, personal convictions and the everyday need to survive.

What does the director say?

Tejedor frames the film as a crisis of his own pacifism.

"I have never been interested in war or weapons. But the invasion of Ukraine shattered my convictions," Tejedor said. "Ever since, one question has haunted me: what does it mean to be a pacifist today? I do not judge the workers at Arsenal, nor the local population."

His verdict on method: "'The Big Boom!' does not seek to lecture, but to confront the gray zones of a continent trapped in its own paradoxes."

It's a familiar tightrope for the director. Tejedor, a Swiss filmmaker and journalist, has built his work on utopias and the relationship between individuals and authority across the former Soviet Union and its satellite states. Previous credits include "Rue Mayskaya" and "Kombinat," both selected for Visions du Réel; "Rue Mayskaya" also played IDFA.

Who is selling it, and why?

Anna Berthollet, CEO of Lightdox, sold the acquisition in personal as well as commercial terms.

"'The Big Boom!' brings us face to face with a contradiction at the heart of today's Europe – a town making the weapons of war while struggling with its own loyalties and beliefs," Berthollet said.

She added: "Gabriel Tejedor finds a way into this reality that feels both clear-eyed and deeply human. As someone of Bulgarian origin myself, I find his sensitive portrayal of Kazanlak and its people particularly meaningful. He reveals the layers of history, identity and geopolitical influence that shape the region without reducing them to a political argument."

A sales chief with family roots in the region is a useful signal for buyers. Lightdox now carries the film into the market with that endorsement attached.

How was it made?

Mira Film Basel GmbH produces. RTS Radio Télévision Suisse and SRG SSR co-produce, with support from Swiss and regional film funds and cultural institutions. Standard European documentary plumbing, in other words — and enough of it to get the film to Frontlight.

The IDFA premiere will be the first test of whether Tejedor's restraint pays off with audiences. A documentary about arms workers that refuses to judge them is a harder sell than it sounds. That difficulty, presumably, is the pitch.

After Amsterdam, the question is festival reach — whether Frontlight converts into the kind of territorial deals that keep a four-hander about factory life in circulation. Berthollet has staked her name, and her origins, on the answer.