A Decade in the Making, a Portrait of an Activist Reaches Zurich With Its Sales Deal Already Signed
Lightdox has acquired world sales rights to the documentary My Home of Wind and Sand ahead of the film's world premiere Tuesday at the Zurich Film Festival. Filmmaker Patrick Wally spent more than ten years on it, and the film is described as a portrait of Najla Mohamed Lamin, an activist working on women's rights, human rights and climate. A decade of shooting gives a documentary room to follow a campaign, a place, or a person across time rather than catching a single moment — which is presumably part of what made the project attractive to a sales company before a festival audience had seen it.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
Ten years on one subject is unusual for a documentary in a market that rewards fast turnaround, and it's the kind of span that could let the film show a cause changing rather than just describe it.
Or the opposite: a decade of filming means the film is finished long after it started, so the portrait risks trailing events rather than meeting them. Either way, the length is the story as much as the subject.