Sheffield Doc Fest is partnering with Cannes Docs in 2021 to showcase four docs that could not be more geographically nor thematically diverse. As to why Sheffield is embracing Cannes, festival boss Cíntia Gil is very clear. “We are bringing projects that we believe in to this bigger space, which is Cannes and its market, and to actually enter the conversation about how (some) festivals are not just showcases or events to celebrate film, but are also important players and important partners for filmmakers and producers to actually make films happen and to support their best possible trajectory.”
“I think that Cannes has, over the years, done quite clear work around acknowledging the importance of cinematic documentary and the importance of nonfiction as a cinematic form of art that should be valued and supported,” she adds.
The four projects are from, respectively, the UK, Morocco/France/Qatar, Ecuador and Indonesia/The Netherlands. Kim Hopkins’ A Bunch of Amateurs tells of the Bradford Movie Makers, Britain’s oldest amateur film-making club, which pulls out all the stops to save its ancient clubhouse from its final reckoning in this quietly hilarious, profoundly moving portrait of shared artistic folly that speaks to the delusional dreamer in us all. The feature film (or 2 x 50-minutes) is at rough cut stage, budgeted at $575,000 (with 48% in place) and slated for a late 2021 or early 2022 delivery.
In Adnane Baraka’s Fragments from Heaven, two men, a nomad and a scientist, are in search of the same ‘fragments from heaven’ but for different reasons. Valuable meteorites could bring either great wealth or answers to questions about the origins of life. The 90-minute project is in post-production ahead of a December 2021 release.
Iván Mora Manzano’s 90-minute Ecuadorian project The Beach of Enchaquirados, currently in post-production, Vicky is a fisher by day and bar owner at night. When she was a little boy her dream was to be a radio soap opera star, nowadays she dreams of falling in love again. The film asks, how is it possible that a small, barren place in the third world has managed to achieve this special form of freedom and tolerance? Delivery is expected January 2022 on the €135.366,24 project, of which73% is in place.
The fourth project is Yonri Revolt’s The Silent Path, which concerns the priest Soebertono Mote who arrived in Papua 50 years ago. He has a man with personal views on armed conflict, colonialism and love. His return to the Netherlands, which continued with his passing away, seemed to signal that there were unfinished things in Papua. The runtime on the project in post- is 78 minutes, with a mooted release date of October 2021.
“All four projects are quite different in their approaches, their languages, their way of thinking about their subject, but also thinking about film language,” says Gil. “It was very important for us to bring this question of diversity, not being just the question of representation, but it’s actually a question of form and film language. And so the four projects are deeply different, one from the others, but they are all very unique and very authorial and independent, and [with] all of them we felt that we’re adding something to the ideas that we have of non-fiction today, and we’re kind of bringing something that was a discovery for us.”
As the doc world (and beyond) allows for a modicum of post-vaccine optimism, Gil has no desire to return to the attitudes evident within the old reality. “I don’t know exactly what will happen, but I know one thing as a principal, which is, with a traumatic crisis like this one, if you pretend to, if you want to, and if you get focused on going back to what it was, that’s a hell of a mistake. You know, these moments are deeply challenging and painful, but it can’t be for nothing. And when you go through this, you need to try to turn it, to recycle it into something that may be a little bit more positive.
“And so I believe, I don’t know, but I believe that people and festivals and productions and the film industry will take what happened and the way we have to shape it as a challenge and an inspiration to look for better ways of dealing with each other and of organizing work, power, money, visibility, et cetera.”
“The fact that the pandemic has completely uncovered, and put in front of the eyes of everyone, the inequalities that we live with – that has to be reflected in the film industry. And that has consequences in everything, in travel, in how and where we spend our money. Where do we and how do we use our bodies? How do we move? What time, and how much time, do we spend with whom, and with what? And so I really believe that this will have an impact in the long term that, if we are intelligent and open-minded, can be positive. It can at least, you know, [help us create] a kinder industry. I think that’s the main thing.”
