DOC/FEST SWEEPS OUT OF AUTUMN WITH RECORD ATTENDANCE (23/11/2010)
Sheffield Doc/Fest, the UK's premiere documentary film event, welcomed a record 2200+ delegates to the final edition of the festival to take place in November. Now in its 18th year, Sheffield Doc/Fest will be held next year from 8-12 June 2011. It is the place to see world and UK premieres of the best creative documentaries from the cinema, television and online arenas, and to hear from and meet filmmakers at Q&A sessions.
Joan Rivers opened the line up for 2010, which included a 132 strong line-up of features, shorts, student and cross-platform docsfor 2010, from 26 countries including 17 World Premieres, 26 UK Premieres, 5 European Premieres and 1 International Premiere, packed into five intense days, 3-7 November. New works by John Pilger, Penny Woolcock, Patricio Guzman, Kim Longinotto, George Gittoes, Werner Herzog are featured alongside fascinating new films that offer insight into the worlds of Ingmar Bergman, Alan Bennett, Rolf Harris, Andrea Dunbar, Elgar, Jean-Michel Basquiat, William S Burroughs, Hamed Abu Zayd, Nicolae Ceauşescu and Bin Laden's ex bodyguard, Abu Jandal in The Oath.
AWARD WINNERS
If you didn’t get to Doc/Fest, but want to find out about what’s hot in docs right now, then check out the winners of the BT Vision Sheffield Doc/Fest Awards for some inspiration. The six award categories were: Special Jury Award, BT Vision Sheffield Innovation Award, Sheffield Youth Jury Award, Sheffield Green Award, Sheffield Student Doc Award, plus the Inspiration Award which was given to Kim Longinotto. The BCS Digital Revolutions competition winners were also announced.
The Special Jury Award was awarded to Kim Longinotto’s Pink Saris. ‘’In Kim Longinotto’s complex and ambiguous, but uncompromising Pink Saris we witness the difficult process of observational cinema. With rich and complex characters, this vérité film explores deeply troubling social injustice. It is dramatic, as well as transformative”. The BT Vision Sheffield Innovation Award was awarded to Clio Barnard for The Arbor, a biography of Yorkshire playwright Andrea Dunbar. “The Arbor combines powerful storytelling, immaculate attention to detail and craft with an ingenious use of actors, testimonial voice-over and lip-synching”. Sheffield Youth Jury Award was awarded to Laura Fairrie’s The Battle for Barking (pictured). The jury described Laura’s film as “challenging, relevant and entertaining”. This year, the Sheffield Youth Jury programme is funded by the Sheffield Town Trust and the University of Sheffield, with support from Screen Yorkshire. Sheffield Green Award was awarded to Floris-Jan van Luyn’s Rainmakers, which was selected for Sheffield Doc/Fest’s MeetMarket in 2008. The jury, who unanimously voted for the film described it as, ‘intelligent, subtle, beautiful and occasionally witty piece of filmmaking that alerts us to the disparity between central and local governments' environmental policy in China’. The jury particularly liked ‘the foregrounding of women activists, and the contrast between rural and urban voices. The film deftly avoided cliché and predictable framing of its subject’. The Sheffield Student Doc Award was awarded to Will Woodward’s No Easy Time, which focuses on Therapeutic Community, a prison programme run by prisoners themselves. Last but not least, Sheffield Doc/Fest’s Inspiration Award celebrates a figure in the industry who has championed documentary and helped get great work into the public eye. This year the award goes to acclaimed British documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto, director of Cannes and Sundance award-winning films Sisters in Law and Rough Aunties, whose newest film Pink Saris won the Special Jury Award.
Now in its 18th year, Sheffield Doc/Fest will be held 8-12 June 2011. Sheffield Doc/Fest is the UK's premiere documentary film event. It is the place to see world and UK premieres of the best creative documentaries from the cinema, television and online arenas, and to hear from and meet filmmakers at Q&A sessions. All films are open to the public and a limited number of free standby tickets are available to students and senior citizens (excluding opening night). Some industry sessions and masterclasses are also available to the public. Registration is already open for Doc/Fest 2011 - get in early and secure your place for 2011 at: http://sheffdocfest.com/registration
View more pics of Sheffield Doc/Fest 2010 at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27833357@N04/
Sheffield Doc/Fest is supported by Screen Yorkshire in partnership with the UK Film Council through RIFE Lottery Funding.
