In the context of modern professional football, where there have been countless initiatives to limit racist behaviour on the terraces and to preach tolerance, it’s quite bracing to spend an afternoon in the stands of FC Minyor’s Stadium of Peace, as Nikolay Stefanov’s documentary No Place for You in Our Town roughly allows us to do. Numbering not more in attendance than what you’d see at a Sunday league game in a park, their rowdy fans, in lieu of goals to celebrate, seem to be focused on outdoing one another to shout both the most racially offensive and the most catchy chant. Stefanov doesn’t stand in awe of these unpleasant subjects, but rather definitely harnesses some of their energy, the camera shaking or just holding on for dear life against their rhythmic mass.

David Katz, Cineuropa

Written and directed by Nikolay Stefanov, co-written by Ralitsa Golemanova and Mariana Sabeva, follows hardcore skinhead and single father Tsetso and his gang, who are violently devoted to the success of their local third division football team. For these residents of Pernik, a slowly decaying ex-mining centre, the team has become a source of identity and a site of aggressively toxic masculinity.

– – No Place for You in Our Town explores the modern presence of fascism within a community in decline, clinging to their key source of hope and entertainment, their local football team. It shows how one man with such a toxic persona changes as he’s temporarily pulled away from that world.

Rebecca Cherry, Film Carnage