SHEFFIELD DOC/FEST COVERAGE: 2023
a full auditorium at the Sheffield DocFest 2023 ahead of a screening of the documentary “Your Fat Friend,” which won the audience award for the festival.
Cinetopia’s Amaya Bañuelos Marco gives an overview of the 2023 Sheffield DocFest and some of her favourite films from the UK’s leading documentary film festival
The UK’s largest festival dedicated to non-fiction filmmaking celebrated its 30th edition with a packed programme of films, talks & sessions and alternative reality exhibitions, highlighting the many forms that contemporary non-fiction films are taking.
The festival kicked off with the announcement of Raúl Niño Zambrano as Creative Director of Sheffield Doc/Fest following a successful year as Acting Creative Director, and this year’s bold and ambitious programme proves his serious commitment to bringing the most exciting and vital non-fiction films to Sheffield.
Central to this year’s edition was the retrospective of Iranian documentary filmmaker Rakhsahn Banietemad. This was a rare opportunity to discover the work of this pioneering filmmaker whose work, focussing on the lives of women in Iran and addressing social issues, has largely been unseen in the UK. While Rakhsahn Banietemad couldn’t attend the event due to ill-health, an in-conversation event with Award-winning producer Elhum Shakerifar and acclaimed academic Maryam Ghorbankarimi provided a great insight into her wide range of work and reflection of her documentary style, always attentive and respectful of her documentary subjects.
In fact, one could notice a bigger consideration to ethics in documentary filmmaking; exemplified by the curatorial choices and thoroughly discussed both in the film Q&As and industry sessions. While discussions around ethical documentary filmmaking have been going on for many years, it is much welcomed that it takes centre stage in the most important documentary festival of the UK. My three picks below show a deep understanding of this approach when dealing with sensitive subject-matter and vulnerable participants:
Production still from The Hearing (2023)
The Hearing (Lisa Gerig, Switzerland, 2023)
An extraordinary and imperative film that sees four asylum seekers re-enacting their own real-life conversations with the government officials who will assess their cases. This film offers a unique insight into Switzerland’s process for evaluating asylum seekers and highlights the impersonal way of these processes and their lack of a trauma-informed approach. The director’s existing relationships with asylum seekers due to her 10-year work as an activist was crucial in her success in finding asylum seekers to participate in the film. However, she struggled to find officials willing to participate and only 4 out of the 50 she met were interested in getting involved, who in the director’s words “were already critical with the system.” The Hearing invites audiences to think whether these hearings are the right way for granting asylum, and whether the ability to be a good storyteller plays an important part in a successful outcome.
Image from film, “Is There Anybody Out There?”
Is There Anybody Out There? (Ella Glendining, UK/USA, 2023)
A first feature-length film of filmmaker Elle Glendining, this is a poignant and honest exploration of living with disability in an ableist world. Born with a rare condition there aren’t even statistics of, Elle embarks on a journey to find more people like her, and in the process reasserts her self-acceptance and belief that bodies like her shouldn’t be changed. Combining video diaries with interviews of people, family members, friends, and doctors, the film stands out for its depiction of disability joy and friendship, and of being a disabled parent. Is There Anybody Out There? is an intimate and moving documentary that invites audiences to reflect on the prevalent ableism in our societies.
The film screens as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival on the 19th and 20th August 2023 and will be released generally in November 2023 in the UK.
Lonely Oaks (Fabiana Fragale, Kilian Kuhlendahl, Jens Muehlhoff, Germany, 2023)
A timely documentary that recounts the story of journalist-turned-activist Steffan Meyn, who tragically died during a 2018 police operation to clear the site, and of the occupation of Germany’s Hambach Forest. The filmmakers, all university friends of Steffan Meyn, combine Meyn’s 360º footage from his time living and documenting the forest occupation with more recent interviews with activists that also took part in the occupation. The time between Steffan’s death and the interviews is instrumental in helping the activists reflect on their reasons, conflicts, and wishes of occupying while taking some necessary distance from Steffan’s death. Through these interviews and Meyn’s first-person account footage, the documentary manages to achieve a very humane look at environmental activists who are often demonised by the media.
Check out our full coverage on the 2023 Sheffield DocFest as part of our June Cinetopia podcast/radio show, including a review of the opening gala film, TISH, an interview with TISH director, Paul Sng, reviews of audience award-winner, YOUR FAT FRIEND, an Argentine documentary, THE CASTLE, and LONELY OAKS mentioned above. Listen below or on our podcast page here. Contributors to the show include Amaya Bañuelos Marco, Clara Strachan, and Amanda Rogers.
