In the Bulgarian mining town of Pernik, a weekend football match is not for the faint of heart. Dressed in the black and yellow team colours, dozens of FC Minyor Pernik fans descend on the home pitch, the “Stadium of Peace”. The nickname is an ironic one. Staying close to its subjects, the camera shakes and bounces alongside the aggressive football fans as they hurl racist, homophobic, and misogynistic abuse at their team’s opponents. A restless and threatening energy thrums through each swaying body, as the men jump up and down in the aisles, even throwing themselves against the protective fences.
Much of Nikolay Stefanov’s documentary places us uncomfortably close to these kind of scenes, conjuring a striking tableau of football hooliganism, toxic masculinity, and economic angst. Among this group of frustrated men, the film focuses on Tsetso, a middle-aged working-class man whose personal story provides some clues to their lifestyle. Like the other skinheads he calls friends, Tsetso also has tattoos of Nazi symbols; a bout with pneumonia, however, leaves him in a more retrospective mood, during which he reveals how his beliefs are influenced by the abuse and racism exhibited by his father.
No Place for You in Our Town seems to suggest that this atmosphere of hatred is a generational one – but at the same time, the film’s exploration of history is limited to propaganda newsreels that offer a glimpse of the town during its mining heyday. With this lack of context, the purely observational style loses its way; in one scene, for example, the destructive behaviour is set to the leftist anthem Samaritans sung by punk band Idles, a pointed juxtaposition that would be lost on those unfamiliar with the song. When it comes to filming hate, the thin line between representation and aestheticisation is, a difficult one to tread.
• No Place for You in Our Town is on True Story from 15 November.
