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Festival coverage

Sheffield DocFest

4 June – 13 May 2021

Sheffield DocFest will run both a physical and online edition from June 4 to 13. It will open with Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) and close with The Story of Looking. This year's festival will feature 55 world premieres and its retrospective is Films Belong To Those Who Need Them - Fragments From The History Of Black British Cinema.

We're inputting the festival strands at the moment, so this page is a work in progress...

Other years (14)

Box office and information

Latest reviews

  • The Ants And The Grasshopper
    Review preview for The Ants And The Grasshopper

    It’s enjoyable to watch this edifying connection between people discovering how much they have in common.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    Anita Chitaya has a gift: she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and maybe she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home in Malawi from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real.
  • Courage
    Review preview for Courage

    There is something optimistic about joining this wave of humanity, from all walks of life, as they brandish flowers in the air and peacefully demonstrate against the regime.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    Documentary about the protests in Belarus.
  • Sing, Freetown
    Review preview for Sing, Freetown

    Made with plenty of upbeat vigour, the end result is a primer history lesson for newcomers to Sierra Leone that also touches on the cultural tensions that can develop even between those pulling in the same direction.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
    Accomplished reporter Sorious Samura collaborates with an old friend on a play intended to celebrate Sierra Leone... and gets more than he bargained for along the way.
  • The Return: Life After ISIS
    Review preview for The Return: Life After ISIS

    Clua's compassionate stance offers a counterweight to the way their stories are often presented by the populist press.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    A documentary about women who left their countries to join ISIS and their fight for repatriation.
  • Charm Circle
    Review preview for Charm Circle

    There's a winning combination of warmth and honesty to the way that she and her family share their lives that opens the door to viewers and asks them to shift their perspective.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
    After uncovering a treasure trove of home videos documenting the moments of love, laughter, and musical expression that punctuated an otherwise tumultuous upbringing, filmmaker Nira Burstein returns to her childhood home – now crumbling from the inside out – to explore whether she and her two sisters can reconnect with her parents.
  • Rancho
    Review preview for Rancho

    The verite approach means that the film has a fragmented feel that would have benefited from a tighter edit but it has plenty of interesting things to say

    Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
    Prison portrait of a maximum-security jail in Argentina.
  • All Light, Everywhere
    Review preview for All Light, Everywhere

    All Light, Everywhere examines the microscopic and vertiginous in equal, beguiling measure.

    Matthew Anderson · 4 out of 5
    An exploration of the shared histories of cameras, weapons, policing and justice. As surveillance technologies become a fixture in everyday life, the film interrogates the complexity of an objective point of view, probing the biases inherent in both human perception and the lens.
  • Lift Like A Girl
    Review preview for Lift Like A Girl

    Has a visual energy that is spurred on by Marian Mentrup's percussively dynamic score, which arrives at key moments.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    In a dilapidated corner of Alexandria, an exceptional community of young female weightlifters is trained by the grumpy yet charismatic Captain Ramadan.
  • From The Wild Sea
    Review preview for From The Wild Sea

    Petré does not use filters, showing the world as it is – starkly beautiful on the eve of disaster.

    Mateusz Tarwacki · 4 out of 5
    The director considers the critical relationship between humans and wild animals and the consequences of climate change.
  • My Name Is Pauli Murray
    Review preview for My Name Is Pauli Murray

    Cohen and West draw on the rich archive of Murray's own work further illustrating it with archive footage and photographs of the periods the film refers to in order to paint a picture of quiet but firm activism.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    Profile of the legal trailblazer.

A–Z of Sheffield DocFest 2021 reviews

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