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Sheffield DocFest — A–Z of films

2026

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  • All Rivers Spill Their Stories To The Sea
    Review preview for All Rivers Spill Their Stories To The Sea

    Full of anger and love in equal measure.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
    When thousands of dead crabs wash ashore along England's North East coast, fisherman Stan Rennie finds himself leading a grassroots fight for answers and a future.
  • American Doctor
    Review preview for American Doctor

    A fourth doctor, unsuccessful in his efforts to get to Gaza, helps in whatever ways he can. This enables the film to move between intense scenes within Gaza itself, and the US, where it’s easier to breathe.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    When three American doctors — Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian — enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to expose the truth.
  • Bugboy
    Review preview for Bugboy

    A film all about connections, what begins as a tale of bug and boy itself metamorphoses into a tender consideration of a father and son relationship.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    George, a shy teenager with an eye disorder, struggles to connect with others after his parents’ divorce and finds refuge in the world of insects.
  • Closure
    Review preview for Closure

    The Polish director understands that the work of searching is also the work of deciding what not to show.

    Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
    After his teenage son goes missing, Daniel scours the depths of the Vistula River, torn between the dread of a fatal leap and the hope that his son may still be alive.
  • Colors Of White Rock
    Review preview for Colors Of White Rock

    Choijoovanchig strikes a fine balance, using drone shots to illustrate the bigger picture while retaining the intimacy of the cab and home environment.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    Documentary following Maikhuu one of the country's only female truck drivers in Mongolia's Gobi Desert.

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  • Derek Vs Derek
    Review preview for Derek Vs Derek

    The strength of the film lies not just in the personalities of its leads, but in the rich detail observed throughout.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    On a country road in Devon, England, live two implacably opposed neighboring farmers, both called Derek. One believes in intensive farming of his land so that food can be produced in abundance; the other is creating an oasis for nature on his land, driven by an entirely different perception of agriculture and a farmer‘s duties.
  • Filthy
    Review preview for Filthy

    A gripping and powerfully argued work.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    When an actress goes looking for the man who assaulted her, she turns her trauma into art and asks the question nobody wanted her to: why didn't you do anything?
  • Forever Is Now
    Review preview for Forever Is Now

    Ní Chianáin captures the sense of monumental shift – coming one way or another no matter what we do – with images of giant, ancient trees uprooted in a valley through which the flood waters have passed.

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    Set between 2023 and 2025, this documentary follows Irish Green Party leader and Cabinet Minister Eamon Ryan during his final 18 months in government. Once buoyed by Europe’s Green wave, Ryan now faces waning public interest in climate issues as he advocates globally for renewable energy and climate justice for the Global South.
  • Hope Is A Word
    Review preview for Hope Is A Word

    Poetry itself provides strong punctuation for the film.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
    In Nigeria's Niger Delta, where oil extraction has poisoned the land for decades, poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey nurtures a new generation of writers to fight back.

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  • Lesbian Lines
    Review preview for Lesbian Lines

    A valuable contribution to the archives and also a fascinating watch.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    A hidden history through an underground network of telephone helplines. The calls, recorded in handwritten notes, were preserved during a time of profound constitutional change in Ireland, when women were fighting for their rights in a restrictive and conservative society.

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  • Nightcleaners
    Review preview for Nightcleaners

    The Berwick Street Collective did not set out to make a by-the-numbers film and instead crafted a documentary that is experimental in form, and that strives to get at deeper truths about gender and labour inequalities.

    Rebecca Naughten · 4.5 out of 5
    A documentary about the campaign to unionise underpaid and victimised women who clean office blocks at night.
  • One In A Million
    Review preview for One In A Million

    The most volatile, morally complicated material is treated as turbulence to pass through rather than weather to be reported.

    Edin Custo · 3.5 out of 5
    Filmed over 10 years, one girl’s epic journey from Syria to Germany and back again. She and her family navigate war, exile, and heartbreak in a foreign land, illuminating the complexities of the refugee experience.

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  • Sentient
    Review preview for Sentient

    It doesn’t posture about whether primates are sentient. It treats that as the baseline fact, then asks what kind of civilisation keeps behaving as if it isn’t?

    Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
    An investigation into laboratory research on animals exposes a hidden world in which it’s not just the animals getting hurt. The story of Dr. Lisa Jones Engel, a primatologist turned animal welfare advocate, asks whether harming animals and ourselves in science’s name is justified.