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Sheffield DocFest · 2020

Sheffield DocFest 2020

Into The World

The festival is running a June and autumn schedule, indicated in italics below.

Programme

24 films · 10 reviews

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Aswang

Review preview for Aswang

Shot mainly at night, the darkness deepens the film's oppressive quality, while the constant presence of rubbish only adds to the sense of everyone sitting in a miasma of despair.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
Documentary tracking the human fallout of Rodrigo Duterte's policy of executing suspected drug dealers in the Philippines.

(Country: Philippines, France, Norway, Qatar, Germany; Year: 2019; Director: Alyx Ayn G Arumpac)

Full review

Screening in June

Bitter Bread

Review preview for Bitter Bread

This is a bald recording of the lives being lived and the stoicism needed to keep going even in these most grim of circumstances.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
Documentary about a community of refugees living in a tent camp in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley.

(Country: Lebanon, Iraq, France; Year: 2019; Director: Abbas Fahdel)

Full review

Screening in June

Breadline

Review preview for Breadline

A conversation about whether if you're hungry "you'll eat anything" hangs in the air as something for us all to chew on.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
The day-to-day workings of a food bank.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Carol Slater)

Full review

Screening in June

Film About A Father Who

Review preview for Film About A Father Who

While there's no doubting the director's commitment and connection to what is happening here, it's more difficult to engage with it as an outside audience.

Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
The director turns her camera on her father, as she and her siblings find out an increasing number of family secrets.

(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Lynne Sachs; Writer: Lynne Sachs; Stars: Julia Buchwald-Sachs, Ira Sachs Sr., Adam Sachs, Dana Sachs, Evan Sachs, Ira Sachs)

Full review

Screening in autumn 2020

Flint

A documentary about the pollution crisis that has poisoned the people of Flint, Michigan for over six years.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Anthony Baxter; Writer: Richard Phinney; Stars: Alec Baldwin)

Screening in June

Galena

Review preview for Galena

Cinematographer Ebrahim Moradi (who also edited the film with Parvazeh) captures the great and small of this community, showing a painterly and patient eye for faces.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
A snapshot of the life of an elderly woman in a largely empty village near a lead mine.

(Country: Iran; Year: 2019; Director: Ezzatollah Parvazeh)

Full review

Screening in June

Influence

Charting the recent advancements in weaponised communication by investigating the rise and fall of the world's most notorious public relations and reputation management firm: the British multinational Bell Pottinger.

(Year: 2020; Director: Diana Neille, Richard Poplak; Writer: South Africa, Canada)

Screening in June

Isle Of Us

Review preview for Isle Of Us

An emotionally intelligent film that captures the contours of a life transplanted.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
Portrait of a Syrian barber and his family who now live on the Isle of Bute.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Laura Wadha)

Full review

Screening in June

The Kiosk

The filmmaker goes to help her mother, a newspaper saleswoman, in a kiosk located in a wealthy area of Paris.

(Country: France; Year: 2020; Director: Alexandra Pianelli)

Screening in autumn 2020

Memory Is Our Homeland

Charting the lost story of Polish refugees in Africa from 1942 to 1952 - a journey that brought a group of children through Siberia, Iran, India, and East Africa, to new lives in Montreal, Sheffield, and across the global Polish diaspora.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2019; Director: Jonathan Kolodziej Durand; Writer: Jonathan Kolodziej Durand)

Screening in autumn 2020

Oeconomia

Revealing the rules of the game of capitalism, this film makes visible the essential paradox that the economy only grows, and profits are only possible, when we are in debt.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2020; Director: Carmen Losmann; Writer: Carmen Losmann; Stars: Carmen Losmann, Angela Merkel, Carmen Losmann, Angela Merkel)

Screening in June

Please Hold The Line

This film follows cable technicians in Moldavia, Romania, Ukraine and Bulgaria as they visit their customers.

(Country: Austria; Year: 2020; Director: Pavel Cuzuioc; Stars: Oleg Chumak, Ionut Fotin, Marius Marcovici, Ghenadie Mardari, Deyan Minchev, Vasil Petrov, Georgi Tcholakov)

Screening in June

Remnants Of A Revolution

A founding member of the Communist Party of the Philippines is in the final days of his life when his son discovers his role in the dark period of the Party’s history.

(Country: Philippines; Year: 2019; Director: Cha Escala)

Screening in autumn 2020

The Secret Of Doctor Grinberg (El secreto del doctor Grinberg)

In 1994, and at the height of his career, Jacobo Grinberg mysteriously disappeared. The strange circumstances of his disappearance have given rise to multiple hypotheses and this investigative documentary takes up the story.

(Country: Spain; Year: 2020; Director: Ida Cuéllar; Writer: Ida Cuéllar, Miguel León, Juan Muñoz-Tébar, Fernanda Rossi)

Screening in June

Seekers

Documentary about the uncertain future of the Jicarilla tribe, seen through the microcosm of two brothers who were raised off their ancestral land.

(Country: France; Year: 2019; Director: Aurore Vullierme)

Screening in June

Space Journey (El Viaje Espacial)

Review preview for Space Journey

The documentarian finds a rhythm along with a gradually building theme concerning travellers and migres in these liminal spaces.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Observational documentary captures snapshots of bus stops across Chile and the people who wait there.

(Country: Chile; Year: 2019; Director: Carlos Araya Díaz)

Full review

Screening in June

Stolen Fish

Review preview for Stolen Fish

One of the interviewees talks about the "stomach" of the factory needing to be filled - a strong image that highlights the "monster" problem that the community faces.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
How the impact of a fishmeal factory in The Gambia stretches far further than the country's shores.

(Country: Spain, UK, Poland; Year: 2020; Director: Gosia Juszczak)

Full review

Screening in June

The Story Of Plastic

Review preview for The Story Of Plastic

This is a well-constructed film, featuring not just strong talking head material, from experts and those bearing the impact of the industry across the globe, but also smart animations that crystallise the issues.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
Considering the cost of the plastics industry.

(Country: US, Belgium, China, India, Indonesia, Philippines; Year: 2019; Director: Deia Schlosberg; Writer: Tony Hale, Deia Schlosberg, Brian Wilson, Stiv Wilson)

Full review

Screening in June

Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue (Yi zhi you dao hai shui bian lan)

Prominent Chinese writers and scholars gather in a village in Shanxi, a province of China and the hometown of Jia Zhang-Ke. This starts an eighteen-chapter symphony about Chinese people since 1949.

(Country: China; Year: 2020; Director: Jia Zhang-Ke; Writer: Jia Zhang-Ke, Wan Jiahuan)

Screening in autumn 2020

To See You Again (Volverte a Ver)

In 2016, the Mexican District Attorney secretly buried more than 100 murdered bodies during the war against drug trafficking. They kept it hidden until a group of women, mothers, discovered it - this documentary charts the discoveries as the bodies are exhumed.

(Country: Mexico; Year: 2020; Director: Carolina Corral)

Screening in June

Us Kids

Determined to turn unfathomable tragedy into action, the teenage survivors of Parkland, Florida catalyse a powerful, unprecedented youth movement that spreads with lightning speed across the country, as a generation of mobilised youth take back democracy in this powerful coming-of-age story.

(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Kim A Snyder)

Screening in June

The Viewing Booth

Review preview for The Viewing Booth

The relationship between what is viewed and the viewer really come to the fore along with some troubling considerations of the way that fiction film and reality television may have an impact on the way people filter factual footage.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
The filmmaker chooses an American student - an enthusiastic supporter of Israel - to comment on a range of films made about the Occupied Territories.

(Country: US, Israel; Year: 2019; Director: Ra'anan Alexandrowicz; Writer: Ra'anan Alexandrowicz; Stars: Maia Levi)

Full review

Screening in June

Vulnerable Beauty (Vulnerabile Bellezza)

After the earthquake of 2016, a young family of animal breeders maintain their way of life in an Italian village as demolition and reconstruction are happening.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2019; Director: Manuele Mandolesi; Writer: Manuele Mandolesi)

Screening in June

You Think The Earth Is A Dead Thing (Tu Crois Que La Terre Est Chose Morte)

Documentary about Martinique farmers reclaiming cultivated land as they fight for biodiversity.

(Country: France; Year: 2019; Director: Florence Lazar; Writer: Jean Breschand, Florence Lazar)

Screening in June