Science at Sheffield
The Science at Sheffield initiative presented in partnership with The Wellcome Trust returned to Docfest in 2011, with a focus on documentaries of all genres, with content inspired by science.
The programme included two sessions, and also presented two films as a part of the programme.
Bombay Beach
Deep in rural California, in a forgotten holiday oasis on a salt-laden sea, lives the Parrish family. While the parents are trying to stay on the right side of social services and the law, their youngest son Benny plays in a surreal Ritalin-infused dreamworld. Meanwhile CeeJay has moved to the area from the ganglands of LA where his cousin was just murdered. He’s now hoping to become the football star that wins the girl. On the wrong side of 90, Red refuses to give up his dancing shoes, living on his memories and a steady stream of whiskey and cigarettes. Music video maestro Alma Har’el discovered Bombay Beach while scouting locations for a Zach Condon (Beirut) music video. Using improvised dialogue and dreamlike choreographed dance sequences, and music by Condon and Bob Dylan, she delivers up a vividly original feature doc debut.
Project Nim
In 1973, when he was a few days old, a baby chimpanzee named Nim was taken from his mother and given to a new ‘mother’: a graduate student of psychology with three children living in Manhattan. In a radical experiment to demonstrate that primates could communicate language, Nim was to live exclusively with humans and hopefully learn enough to communicate his thoughts and feelings. Within a few months, Nim is confidently speaking in sign language, all the while wrecking the house and seemingly intent on destroying the human relationships within it. James Marsh (Man on Wire) pieces together the extraordinary story of Nim’s life as he moves through a series of carers, and ultimately returns to the cage he was born into. While there are evidently many intriguing overlaps between humans and chimps, the film highlights that it’s the differences between the species that really shape Nim’s life and determine his unhappy fate.
The Next Big Thing: Fads and Formats in Science on Screen
Tomorrow’s World, Walking with Dinosaurs, Surgery Live, Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, Inside Nature’s Giants, One Born Every Minute, Embarrassing Bodies, Wonders of the Solar System... From documentary to docudrama, selfexperimentation to live stunts, reality to drama – science on TV has had its fair share of formats and fads. But what’s the next twist to the story? Where does science on screen go from here? At this year’s Wellcome Trust Session, the panelists will take part in a lively debate about the key science moments of TV past, present and future.
The Wellcome Trust Broadcast Development Awards Pitch
The Wellcome Trust Broadcast Development Awards Pitch returned to Sheffield Doc/Fest for a fourth year.
Applicants were invited to apply for the chance to pitch a programme idea (in any genre) to a judging panel. The ideas needed to engage the audience with contemporary or historical biomedical science, in an innovative and accessible way.
Awards of up to £10,000 were available and had the chance to be given to more than one project. The prize enabled the pitched ideas to be developed into high impact, well-researched proposals to help secure a UK broadcast platform and production funding.
The pitch and the announcement of the awards took place on Friday 10 June as part of Science at Sheffield..
THIS PITCH IS NOW CLOSED