Full Festival Pass Single Public Ticket Doc/Lovers' Pass

Festival opens in

23 days

Overview

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The 20th Sheffield Doc/Fest film programme is alive and kicking.

Sculpted from nearly 2000 submissions we bring you a programme made up of 77 feature films, 33 short films, 11 interactive documentaries, 1 film in an art gallery and 1 screened in an inflatable dome (best experienced laying down) in our famed Winter Gardens.

Our programme highlights some of the best documentary films of the year, with filmmakers such as Walter Murch at the festival to present his new work: 'Particle Fever' and John Akomfrah with his brilliant new film 'The Stuart Hall Project. Britain's Lucy Walker returns with her brilliant new film straight from Sundance, 'The Crash Reel', and Kim Longinotto (Sheffield Inspiration Award winner 2010) is back with a wonderful new film 'Salma' - focussing on the famed Indian poet.

In total we have over 75 directors attending the festival to accompany their films with Q&As in cinema to help our audiences get a better and deeper understanding of the documentary filmmaking process and the story behind the film.

For all you film lovers, the best way to get acquainted with the programme is to glide through our strand pages. Here both delegates and public can read all about about music docs, arts docs, films about the art of protest, short films, LGBT docs and much more.

Holy double-bills: a new addition to this year's programme is the Films On Films strand that highlights some down right cultish documentaries and their accompanying fiction films. John Waters' Female Trouble plays with the new I Am Divine doc about the lead actress of so many Waters' films. Apocalypse Now plays with Hearts of Darkness and the editor, Walter Murch will be here for one hell of a Q&A. No programme is complete whtout a little Werner Herzog so we could not resist including My Best Fiend to play with the relentless Aguirre, The Wrath of God. Last but definitely not least, we bring you our friend, mentor and spiritual guide, Mark Kermode, in person, to present his documentary 'The Fear of God: 25 Years of The Exorcist' along with the brilliant puke-fest 'The Exorcist'.

Every year we present a retrospective of our favourite filmmakers and this year we are over the moon to present the Shohei Imamura retrospective. Known as one of the most radical and influential filmmakers ever, his documentaries rarely screen in the UK. If you want to be impressed by films that dance the line between fiction and doc, and if you want to see how to treat a subject with some RESPECT than look no further and check out all four of Imamura's films.

We are proud to be supporting established and new directors throughout the programme. In fact, we have a new Short Doc award designed especially to showcase our best short films. Its not only a strand that allows you to find the newest directing talent of tomorrow. Making a good short film is really really hard! Its a skill and a gift that is worth honouring.

Other award strands include the Special Jury Award, the Sheffield Green Doc Award that honours our best environmentally themed films, the Sheffield Innovation Award for our most radical, most digital, most cutting edge films and our Youth Jury Award for films that best appeal to young audiences. The Sheffield Student Doc Award is one of our longest standing awards and has brought profile and recognition to some great films over the years. (In fact, John Lundberg, director of this year's Mirage Men, won the Sheffield Student Doc Award 10 years ago at the festival. Funny how things come full circle.)

The Inspiration Award recognises some of the figures that have been influential in the doc world, either behind the scenes, or behind the camera. This year Mr. Nick Fraser, editor of BBC Storyville, will be honoured as the commissioner on a mission.

You can buy tickets to films from the Showroom Cinemas homepage. But the smart money is on the delegates pass that gives you access to all films, plus the networking events, sessions, masterclasses and parties so you can meet the filmmakers in the flesh.

We hope you enjoy the films and get as much joy and insight out of them as we do. Here is to the documentary medium getting bigger and better!