Tag Archives: Doc Fest

Boys Who Like Girls premiere launched at Sheffield Doc/Fest

Sheffield Doc/Fest hosted another world premiere with the launch of Boys Who Like Girls, a film set in Mumbai that explores male violence and masculinity. The film describes a young teenager called Ved who comes from a violent home in the Mumbai slums. After joining a project aiming to foster healthy masculinity he realises there may be a brighter path than the one paved by his abusive and controlling father. Sheffield Live! presenter Martin Carter spoke to film director Inka Achte and producer Liisa Karpos.

Doc/Fest welcomes Oscar winner to Sheffield

Oscar winning director Vanessa Roth brought her new film Daughters of Destiny to Sheffield Doc/Fest ahead of its launch on Netflix this summer. Daughters of Destiny follows some of rural India’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged children as they grow up in the Shanti Bhavan project. The film is an exploration of poverty, discrimination, opportunity and the search for purpose. Sheffield Live! reporter Simon Thake spoke to Vanessa Roth.

Freedom for the Wolf UK premier at Sheffield Doc/Fest

Among new films premiered at this year’s Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival is a hard hitting take on how freedom struggles are changing the world. Sheffield Doc/Fest attracts some of the biggest film makers to the city with over 3,000 people registered to participated in the five day event. Sheffield Live! reporter Azz Mohammed spoke to Rupert Russell, writer and director of Freedom for the Wolf.

Doc/Fest applauds Mr Gay Syria

One of the stand out films at this year’s Doc/Fest is the story of two gay Syrian refugees competing in a pageant for the title of Mr Gay Syria. The documentary tells a story of resistance to persecution and the life-threatening situations faced by LGBT+ Syrians. Sheffield Live! reporter Simon Thake was at the screening and spoke to Turkish director of the film Ayse Torpak.

Love is in the air at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017

This year’s Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival features a collection of documentary love stories, including US production For Ahkeem. Directed by Jeremy Levine and Landon Van Soest, the film tells the coming-of-age story of 17-year old Daje who is determined to turn her life around after a rough upbringing in St Louis. The film explores themes of teenage proverty, education and hope. Sheffield Live! reporter Simon Thake spoke with the directors at a question and answer session at the Light Cinema.

Doc/Fest accepting film submissions for 2014

Sheffield Doc/Fest is now accepting film submissions for the 2014 programme.

If you are a new, established or student filmmaker with a great documentary to share, there is no better place to launch your film than at Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Doc/Fest accepts short, medium and feature length documentaries about any subject or on any theme; and also encourages new interactive documentary films to enter.

To enter, please visit the Doc/Fest website – where you can find the rules and regulations and the submission guidelines, and the online submission form.

Films with a duration over 30 minutes (with credits) are charged at £30 (+VAT) per entry. Films running at under 30 minutes (with credits) are £25 (+VAT) per entry.

Doc/Fest only accept films submissions on Vimeo.

Submissions are accepted until midnight (GMT), January 24th 2014.

Many new documentary films have launched from the Sheffield Doc/Fest world renowned programme including ‘The Flaw’ by David Sington, ‘We Are Poets’ by Alex Ramseyer-Bache and Daniel Luccessi, ‘Fire In the Blood’ by Dylan Mohan Gray.

If you have any questions please contact the Director of Programming, Hussain Currimbhoy.

Workstation celebrates 20 years of creativity

Image: Workstation portrait by ‘We Live Here’ artist Jonathan Wilkinson

Image: Workstation portrait by ‘We Live Here’ artist Jonathan Wilkinson

Sheffield’s Workstation Creative Business Centre – home to Sheffield Live’s studio – is celebrating its 20 year anniversary.

Built as a stylish art deco car showroom in the 1930s, the Workstation opened in 1993 as Sheffield’s first managed workspace and centre for creative industries.

It now houses more than 60 enterprising creative companies with a vibrant community of over 400 designers, film makers, new media developers, architects, festival makers, marketers, publishers and social enterprise champions.

Over the years, many of the greats in Sheffield’s creative community have been associated with the Workstation, from Designers Republic to Warp Films to Sheffield Doc/Fest to Last Laugh Comedy Club.

And the Workstation has been the backdrop for some legendary local moments – Warp Films used the roof of the building to film scenes in Four Lions, The Human League used to rehearse in the basement, the Arctic Monkeys made a music video here, the auditions for Prisoners’ Wives took place on the third floor and Richard Hawley’s old band The Longpigs used to call office 103 home.

Now a new generation are making their mark, like young entrepreneur Lianne Mellor whose Mellor Ware beautifully handcrafted tea sets are in hot demand, or The Nutribox, a new start-up providing healthy snacks to hungry office workers.

The Workstation is planning a series of events to mark the anniversary, beginning with the We Are 20 Exhibition, which runs throughout the summer until the end of September. It is free for anyone to pop in and take a look, open 8.45am-7.45pm Monday to Friday.

This exhibition charts the development of the former Kennings car showroom on Paternoster Row from post-industrial husk, ear-marked for demolition in favour of a car park, into the thriving cultural and creative hub it is now. The exhibition features a specially commissioned piece by ‘We Live Here’ artist Jonathan Wilkinson, alongside photography by Graham Gaunt, Mark Harvey, Shaun Bloodworth, Hugo Glendinning and Matthew Conduit.

On Thursday 12 September there will be a special ’20 by 20×20’ Pecha Kucha event dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the Workstation in which notable tenants, past and present, will give snappy insightful presentations about their work using the Pecha Kucha format of 20 slides with 20 seconds per slide. Pecha Kucha events are fun, sociable networking events with a strictly no business cards policy and this event will be a showcase for some of the city’s most successful creative and digital entrepreneurs – a must for anyone wishing to follow in their footsteps and get inspired. The lineup of speakers will be announced shortly – tickets are on sale now at: http://pknsheff14.eventbrite.com/

At the end of September, the Workstation will host a great big anniversary party – a chance to reunite and reminisce for tenants and a thank you to all the Workstation’s friends, associates and supporters.

In addition to these events, the Workstation is working in partnership with Dr. Marta Herrero of the University of Sheffield who is conducting a research project to assess the economic and cultural impact of the Workstation as a means of launching a broader discussion about the value of culture. Further events linked to the research project will be announced soon.

What next?

Sheffield Doc/Fest reviewed

Van Connor

Van Connor

Van Connor presents Slam Dunk Cinema, Sheffield’s flagship film programme, which broadcasts live every Saturday from noon to 1pm on Sheffield Live.

Last month Van attended Sheffield Doc/Fest which “brings the international documentary family together to celebrate the art and business of documentary making for five intense days in June.”

Over to Van for his commentary on this year’s Doc/Fest:

Launching with the usual fanfare, Doc/Fest returned to Sheffield this month with a veritable bevy of docs covering every possible taste. Continuing the trend of previous years, the festival seemed to have evolved more in scale than anything else; meaning it was impossible for any one person to have seen everything on offer, somewhat of a shame but we’d all agree it’s better to have too much choice than too little.

Shockingly, this was the twentieth year for the festival and saw less of a focus on the fashionably artsy content – don’t be alarmed fanboys, there was still at least one film about an Eastern European mining community – and more of an easygoing vibe to the selections.

Comedy seemed to be the added ingredient this time around. One particular doc, the utterly superb climate change film Thin Ice: The Inside Story of Climate Science, was downright hilarious in places; let down only by its bizarre relegation to the Library Theatre, which it still managed to fill to capacity.

Meanwhile, over in the Crucible, Adam Buxton popped along with a live edition of his ongoing internet series Bug, adding a much-needed stand-up style of brevity that never felt out of place with the rest of the festival.

The guest speakers in some regard lacked the “cool factor” of previous years (not having Adam Curtis in attendance feels like Christmas without your wacky uncle), but the festival managed to hold its own with the attendance of Walter Murch (ostensibly, the godfather of contemporary editing); who made his presence felt in every room in which he even peered and managed to evoke the nostalgia of every great director with whom he’d ever collaborated (and believe me, that’s a hell of a list).

Cherry on top

Also for the Hollywood fanbase was Celluloid Screams’ contribution to proceedings, a double bill of The Fear Of God: 25 Years Of The Exorcist, followed by The Exorcist itself and wrapped around a Q&A with the BBC’s Mark Kermode and director Nick Jones. An evening of tremendous enjoyment with a great atmosphere and top notch guests (Kermode never fails to elicit the requisite five laughs), the Exorcist evening was the playful cherry on top for this year’s Doc/Fest and the perfect example of the fine work Celluloid Screams have pulled off in their (surprisingly) short time on the local film scene.

Horrific, haunting insight…

Another documentary worth singling out was the superb (Channel 4 commissioned) hour long The Hunt For Britain’s Sex Gangs, an horrific yet terribly haunting insight into the police investigation of one of the biggest child sex abuse cases in the UK. A very precise and focused story, its director Anna Hall was able to address several people in attendance who were directly affected by events similar to those depicted, and did so with tremendous poise – until the event was spoilt by the bizarre onstage presence of Hardeep Singh Kohli, who saw it as the ideal platform to make presumably hilarious remarks about Channel 4 and crack jokes about Daily Mail readers in a fashion usually reserved for the sort of lazy comedians you find in working men’s clubs. Without fail, there is always one swaggering blowhard at Doc/Fest each year, and it’s safe to say Kohli took it to crescendo for this year.

Seduced by great selection of films…

Overall, the festival was a solid effort. Sure, the food was rather poor and overpriced, the delegates’ desk sat atop the narrowest staircase known to man (and, thanks to the crowds, took about fifteen minutes to climb every single time), and the festival’s increasingly massive spread saw most of us hauling our way across Sheffield City Centre at full speed once every two hours; but in the end, that’s part of the charm of Doc/Fest – a seduction built upon a great selection of films and leaving you fulfilled enough to return again the following year.

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