Interviews

Director River Finlay talks to BDE about her MeetMarket project that follows Chilean Isabel Allende, one of the world’s most widely read authors, as she “looks beyond the stories she tells the world and confronts the ones she tells herself,” and reckoning with an unresolved past, the passage of time, and the renewed rise of authoritarianism. “Her trailblazing as an author for other women writers really is unparalleled, but mostly she really provides this incredible sense of connection and bravery,” says Finlay of her revered subject.

Norwegian filmmaker Even Sigstad tells the story of how intrepid Norwegian climber Kristin Harila broke mountaineering records in 2023 when she and her Nepalese climbing partner, Tenjen Lama Sherpa, scaled 14 of the world’s highest peaks in the space of only 92 days. The trip, though, developed a very dark side when they were accused of leaving an injured Pakistani porter to die on K2. “We couldn’t foresee how the whole story would evolve and the controversy around it,” Sigstad reflects on the mountaineering story that turned into something very different and far more complex.

Try! follows four players from four Irish teams to the Mixed Ability Rugby World Cup in Spain, where 32 teams from 16 countries go head to head in fifteen-a-side, full-contact rugby played by people with and without physical and learning disabilities. ““There are so many stories. The biggest challenge for us was trying to find out which of these characters we should focus on because everybody involved in that community, just to get to the pitch, they have to overcome so many obstacles,” director Oisín Mistéil tells BDE.

As we see in the heart-wrenching new documentary, Syrian activist and co-director Wafa Mustafa continues to search for her father Ali, who disappeared under the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad. “Of course, the fall of the regime is a new beginning for humanity, not just for Syria, but the fight continues,” Mustafa tells BDE. “The only thing that will give me hope is fighting every day for other young women not to lose their fathers because they dared to speak politics, or dreamed of a better reality.”

Cara Holmes’ Lesbian Lines not only tells the story of the helplines that were established in Ireland in the late 1970s, and which continue to this day, it also tells a history of gay and political activism within a deeply conservative country over which the Catholic church held (and continues to hold) considerable sway. “They would hate to hear me say this, but these women are absolute heroes of mine in terms of what they've done for me and for future generations coming up,” Holmes tells BDE, both of the helpline staff and the activists who have brought about radical change over past decades.

In her short film selected for Sheffield 2026, Netherlands-based Uyghur filmmaker Darya Andijan invokes the ancient myth of Gülem, a forgotten goddess of carpet weaving. The film is highly poetic and personal as it weaves female narratives across borders, all the time set against a background of oppression, and China’s erasure both of the Uyghur language and its sense of identity. “Globalisation is failing us, and people need a different hold on where their home is and what their identity is,” says Andijan.

Dutch producer Renko Douze discusses Ukrainian Helena Maksyom’s feature doc Don't Ask Me If I Killed, sold by Esther van Messel’s First Hand Films, that chronicles the director’s life as a soldier in defence of her country. “It’s such a special and individual story. It’s really her story - and a very human perspective on the frontline,” Douze says.

In his feature documentary, Nigerian-American filmmaker Ose Oyamendan investigates the highly suspicious death in 1998 MKO Abiola, the charismatic billionaire businessman and media mogul who should have been President of Nigeria. “Going into this film, my first objective was that I am going to take my biases out of it. I am going to take out whatever preconceptions I have,” Oyamendan tells BDE. He was always respectful but, as he further notes, he is an activist who “was brought up to question and fight authority.”

There is hardly a corner of the UK that Doc Rowe, the man described as “Britain’s great folklorist,” hasn’t visited and chronicled. He is indefatigable in his attempts to get to these events, if his health will allow it. “There’s a uniformity to them, in that they speak to people’s need for ritual and belonging, but there is also a uniqueness about every single one of them,” Curry suggests of the folk festivals, and Doc Rowe’s fascination for them.

“We are really a nurturing festival. We can take care of each of the films and we promise you will not get lost in an avalanche of too many,” Sheffield DocFest boss Raul Niño Zambrano explains why he favours a streamlined, yet expansive approach within his selection. “I think, for us, balance is the key word,” he reflects on how the festival addresses the huge social and political convulsions of the current era while also finding space for lighter fare.