Sheffield Doc/Fest

… starts tomorrow. The festival and its industry activity used to be a couple of weeks in November before the idfa in Amsterdam. Now it has moved to June, presumably to have more new films without having to compete with the Dutch. Here is a quote from the site:

“Sheffield Doc/Fest brings the international documentary family together to celebrate the art and business of documentary making for five intense days in June. Sheffield is fast becoming known as one of the top places in the world for people from the documentary and digital industries to get together – to meet, to screen their work, share knowledge, do business, make new contacts and discuss innovations and challenges they are facing in the ever changing media landscape. Over the past four years Sheffield Doc/Fest has massively expanded its marketplace activity, as well as its cross platform, interactive and digital programme. These developments and the stunning film programme and often controversial conference sessions are what attract nearly 2000 delegates from around the globe and thousands of general public.”

Stunning film programme? I checked the film list, and if you hope for a wide spread of quality documentaries from all over the world, you will get disappointed. There are no films from Latin America, there are no films from a leading European documentary country like Austria, there is one 10 minutes film from Russia, some insignificant films from Denmark, nothing from Czech Republic… but if you search for UK and US films you will have loads to choose from. Maysles, Barbara Kopple, Broomfield, Eugene Jarecki, Steve James. Stunning, no, international, no, if the organisers think so, one can only say that the selection is lousy, the festival is still totally dominated by English/American language films. Fair enough but do not market it differently!

The winner of idfa 2010 is there, “Position Among the Stars“, photo.

https://sheffdocfest.com/

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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