Sheffield DocFest
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Sheffield DocFest 2014: Utopia review
★★★★★ Forthright director John Pilger’s previous incendiary documentary, 2010’s The War You Don’t See, was a brilliant and eye-opening examination of the media’s handling of conflict as well as its dubious relationship with various warmongering governments. Grand in both scale and ambition, Pilger’s one-man assault on injustice and military expansion spanned the globe. His latest…
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Sheffield DocFest 2014: Regarding Susan Sontag review
★★★☆☆ Susan Sontag, a formidable voice on American politics and culture, once said of cinema: “Movies preserve the past, resurrect the beautiful dead.” In Nancy D. Kates’ demonstrative documentary Regarding Susan Sontag (2014), Sontag’s highly eloquent and confrontational voice is resurrected, allowing the audience to explore the life of a writer who defied the patriarchal…
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Sheffield DocFest 2014: Pulp: A Film review
★★★★☆ Far from an overnight success, Sheffield-based group Pulp originally formed in 1978, but only achieved major recognition in the nineties with their unique brand of indie disco that included big hits such as Babies, Common People and Disco 2000. They became a staple of the Britpop movement, selling over ten million albums worldwide, but…
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Sheffield DocFest 2014: The Case Against 8 review
★★★☆☆ A classic case of content overriding form, Ben Cotner and Ryan White’s gay marriage rights doc The Case Against 8 (2014) stirs the emotions thanks to its sympathetic subjects and liberal sensibilities. Who wouldn’t back the film’s gay and lesbian couples, who valiantly fought to regain their married status after California’s Proposition 8 so…
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Sheffield DocFest 2014: Our picks of the programme
The annual Sheffield Doc/Fest, which takes place from 7-12 June, recently unveiled its full programme for this year’s international documentary showcase. The festival’s biggest coup is unquestionably the world premiere of Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s A 50 Year Argument, which charts how the prestigious New York Review of Books has reflected US culture since…
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Sheffield DocFest 2012: Festival roundup
The wonderful Sheffield Doc/Fest sees off its second summer and its 19th year with some fantastic titles, events and workshops – particularly the opening night double bill of Doc/Fest co-production From the Sea to the Land Beyond (2012) (with live accompaniment from British Sea Power) and StudioCanal’s hugely moving Searching for Sugar Man (2012). It…
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Sheffield DocFest 2012: The Miners’ Hymns review
★★★☆☆ In Decasia (2002), experimental American filmmaker Bill Morrison explored the fragility of film by looking at decomposing celluloid. In The Miners’ Hymns (2010), the director does something very similar but on a grander scale. By slowing down archive footage of the mining communities in the North West of England, and pairing them neatly with…
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Sheffield DocFest 2012: From the Sea to the Land Beyond
★★★★★ A group of waitresses in starched white uniforms stand awkwardly in a row, fiddling with their hair and giggling nervously by the seaside promenade, unsure whether the camera is taking a photograph or film. This is one of many fragments of history which documentary director Penny Woolcock has put together in From the Sea…
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Sheffield DocFest 2012: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry review
★★★★☆ Alison Klayman’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012) is, like all great documentaries, far wider in scope than merely its subject. It’s a fascinating exploration of the Chinese artist and influential tweeter’s ongoing activism, and raises important and relevant questions about an artist’s responsibility in political life and the ever-changing roles that social media may…
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Sheffield DocFest 2011: Alternative roundup
It has been little over half a year since the last Sheffield Doc/Fest, and while the impetus for the move to June was somewhat undermined by the sodden outdoor screenings, the sheer breadth of films and events more than warrant its return. Morgan Spurlock’s latest effort, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011), opened the festival…
