‘Fighter’ directors on making their CPH:DOX title available in two formats

Norwegian documentary Fighter It will be released at two festivals this weekend (one for the film and the other for the series) about the mixed martial arts fighter that breaks his back.

Fighter The world premiere will be held on March 21st at the Nordic: DOX competition as an 82-minute feature at CPH:DOX. Three days later, it is being performed as a 3×42 minute series on the special screening strand of series enthusiasts on Reel.

“The advantage is that you can reach a larger audience,” says Mari Bakke Riise, who wrote and directed the film for Sunniba Sandow and produced alongside Silje evensmo Jacobsen for the Norwegian A5 film. “When it comes to sales, it’s useful because if the station can’t fit the film into the slot, it might be easier to fit into the series.”

TrustNordisk handles international sales in both versions FighterI got into the project last October. The film distribution in September ensured the distribution of Venellax, and territorial transactions are also underway. TV2 has broadcast rights for both Norwegian versions. The project was developed and supported by the Norwegian Film Institute.

Fighter The story of Geir ‘GK’ Kare, a Norwegian mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, tells him the story of a fighter who has a seemingly amazing career before him. When asked to expect a wheelchair, the goalkeeper explores alternative treatments and returns to life.

The goalkeeper contacted the filmmakers themselves shortly after the May 2021 accident. “I decided from my hospital bed that I wanted to make a movie about this,” he explains.

Even in his terrible circumstances, Riise and Sundby said the goalkeeper made it for a great collaborator. “He even asked friends and family to start filming him while he was in the hospital right after the accident,” Sandby says.

Riise and Jacobsen previously delved into the world of sports in the 2013 series Tomorrow’s Sports Hero (Translated by Tomorrow’s Sports Hero) tells the goalkeeper, “I felt good about them from the start.”

“I don’t have any knowledge of making movies, so I left it to them,” he says.

This project was originally conceived as a film. “After years of work, we’ve now had five hard drives with hundreds of hours of footage of various quality,” says Sundby, who opened Parallel Series Avenue. “From private mobile recordings, VHS, surveillance cameras to various film recordings created by different photographers who are part of the project,” he said.

The only obstacle to this process was when the film version was recently completed. “The goalkeeper preferred to watch it with the audience at the premiere for the first time,” says Riise. “It says a lot about him. He has an open, honest and desire to share, but he doesn’t really care about controlling the story about himself and his story.”

The filmmaker was able to convince him to first see it privately. “We’re grateful,” says Lise. “This is still difficult for the GK who has driven many life-changing processes. His entire identity was tied to the body of performance. And when he lost it, he had to go through many different stages to find a new way to become himself.”