Article Previews Doc/Fest November 2, 2009

Finally it’s here: Doc/Fest . The week that Sheffield is over run with baffled  southerners, besotted media types and aspirant directors. Oh, and there are tons of films too!  Films, world premieres, from all over the globe in the coolest, most important documentary festival in the world. So this week throughout the festival, Article is choosing some of the best looking titles and previewing a film a day for your information loving pleasure. Today, we start off with an introduction from the festival’s Programmer himself, Mr. Hussain Currimbhoy. Woop! 

Documentary is like the Grandmaster Flash of cinema: without it there would be no cinema. In fact, to me, everything is a documentary. Rock clips to TV ads – the shape is different, but it’s all really a recording of life in some form, right? Yet doc directors constantly push shit uphill getting their films backed, distributed and seen.

I’ve been programming the Sheffield Doc/Fest since 2008 so I get to see docs from varying perspectives. Last year an American director came to Doc/Fest with his film and within moments of arriving he was in the bar sounding like a grandfather version of Marty Scorsese while talking to UK based directors: ‘You M****s have it so f*** lucky here. We don’t get s*** at home. Have you ever seen what a magnum can do…’ It is here I step in to introduce my new American friend to my old friend Johnnie Walker.

Some would disagree at this simple interpretation, but a point he’s kinda got. BBC, Channel 4 and the like have been behind some of the best documentaries ever. Just this year ‘Man On Wire’ won the doc Oscar.

Cut to: reality. Broadcaster budgets are tighter. Audiences and viewing habits are changing. Some docs and fiction are now made to be seen purely online. If you work in the industry or just love docs, the way to keep up to date and see theory in action is Sheffield Doc/Fest. Humble as they tell us we are in Sheffield, few folk mention that Sheffield Doc/Fest is, like, one of the biggest documentary festivals in the world. Documentarist or not it’s good to know that Nick Broomfield, Michael Moore, Kim Longinotto and Morgan Spurlock have been guests at past festivals. Doc/Fest 09 is days away (eeeek!) so let me get it off my chest: I’m rather sweaty about the appearance of ‘The September Issue’, director RJ Cutler, who is high tailing it from LA for us to do a masterclass. RJ is hysterical. I heard he made Anna Wintour smirk. DA Pennebaker - Rock doc pioneer who still acts like Bob Dylan’s roadie - is coming with his new, brilliant film about pastry chefs (‘Kings Of Pastry’ is like the love child of Gordon Ramsey and doc ‘Spellbound’ from 2002. Laugh now but you will be on the edge of your seat, I guarantee it). Hara Kazuo from Japan is attending to present ‘Extreme Private Eros’ too. It’s a 16mm doc he made in the 70s when his wife became a lesbian and left him. Hell, when my girlfriend came out and left me the last thing I wanted to do was film her giving birth. Not so in Japan! Gotta admire the man for that at least.

But If I were you, I’d be lining up to see the Russian film about Tarkovsky and his cinematographer. I’d be checking out the doc about the Muslim Punk bad. I’d look up our film about how disco and Communism are like oil and water. Free tickets for students, by the way. Seriously.

As for the 1500 filmmakers, distributors, buyers, broadcasters, sales agents, sound recordists, composers, and journalists that attend, they are here for the session programme, the MeetMarket and to party. The MeetMarket is Doc/Fest’s version of a speed dating service where filmmakers with scripts and projects are matched up with decision makers from all over the world to get their ideas to the next stage. Each year several million Great British Pounds are raised to get docs on screen. We even have some of the finished films in the programme. First we think, then we party. For a fest of this weight that is only 4.5 days long, guests are regularly impressed by the way public and industry mingle and drink together like there is no tomorrow. I’ve just realised that Sheffield’s greatest strength as a city is what permeates into an elemental component of the Doc/Fest ethos: no hierarchy, please check your pretensions at the door. But if you have an imagination you are more than welcome.