I’ve been meaning to post on Sheffield Doc/Fest for about a week or so now, but have kept on being distracted. Sadly, I won’t be attending, so perhaps that’s added to the delay. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to go to my first Doc/Fest next year – we’ll see.
In any case, I’ve been jealous of those who have been able to partake in this festival for many years. Until this year, the event has been firmly placed in the Fall’s doc fest cluster, together with CPH:Dox and IDFA, as well as newcomer DOC NYC, making it pretty difficult for me to attend given that it’s prime Sundance screening time. With this edition, Sheffield has made the move to June, holding this year’s festival a remarkable scant seven months since the last edition. Kudos to the festival’s team, especially Festival Director Heather Croall and Programmer Hussain Currimbhoy, on putting together a comprehensive program in such a tight time frame.
Doc/Fest features a broad cross-section of notable docs in more than a dozen different strands – from the thematic Music Docs and Protest Docs to the geographically-based Doc/UK and Doc/International, as well as retrospectives/tributes to non-fiction icons like Albert Maysles and Richard Leacock. Refreshingly, the festival isn’t particularly concerned with premieres, giving them the flexibility of curating a quality slate culled from Sundance, IDFA, Berlin, SXSW, Hot Docs, Tribeca, and elsewhere, as well as a number of brand new titles.
If I were able to attend this year (I’ll be at the Transilvania International Film Festival in Romania at the same time), the titles I haven’t yet seen that I would have liked to check out – and that I’ll be on the look out for at other fests – include:
A profile of Jean Marc CALVET, by Dominic Allan, in which the artist recounts his troubled and self-destructive background.
Emma Lennox and Mitch Miller’s cross platform project BOSWELL IN SPACE, a portrait of 18th C author/diarist James Boswell, best known for LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON his biography on the British lexicographer and writer.
Another portrait doc that intrigues me is the latest from documentarian Kazuhiro Soda (CAMPAIGN), PEACE, an observational essay film about three older, seemingly ordinary Japanese people – and some stray cats.
Observational cinema’s history is the subject of Mandy Chang’s THE CAMERA THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, about Bob Drew, DA Pennebaker, and Richard Leacock’s development of more portable camera equipment to allow for Direct Cinema’s intimacy.
I’m also (somewhat uncomfortably) drawn to James Bluemel’s 66 MONTHS, which follows a dysfunctional relationship between two men on society’s fringe.
My personal obsession with Peter Greenaway’s films puts Silvia Beck’s portrait of the director’s former composer, Michael Nyman, NYMAN IN PROGRESS, on my list.
Speaking of obsessions, Polish filmmaker Magdelena Pieta’s PLANET KIRSAN, a look at the former Soviet state of Kalmykia, a Buddhist country whose president has taken an interest in chess to what sounds like a fascinating extreme.
Extremism of another sort is the focus of MY BROTHER THE ISLAMIST, director Robb Leech’s personal exploration of his stepbrother’s conversion to Islamic fundamentalism and jihadism.
I missed a couple of films at Hot Docs earlier this month that screen at Doc/Fest: NANKING director Dan Sturman & Dylan Nelson’s THE HOLLYWOOD COMPLEX, which goes behind-the-doors of an apartment building catering to would-be Hollywood child stars; and Anthony Baxter’s exposé of an American billionaire real estate developer determined to have his way regardless of environmental impact, YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED.
Also about development run amok, ECUMENOPOLIS: CITY WITHOUT LIMITS, also makes my list. Imre Azem’s doc looks at the unusually quick expansion of Istanbul for political purposes and the impact this is having on its residents.
Another more issue-oriented doc wraps up this list: Adam Wakeling’s UP IN SMOKE, which follows a UK scientist as he tries to combat slash and burn deforestation practices in Honduras with a novel approach.
what (not) to doc 