Sheffield 22

This warm-hearted doc feels at times more like a classic tear-jerker with the seemingly mismatched pairing of an elderly Barcelona drag-queen and a wide-eyed young girl learning to appreciate each other. But in this film truth is more engaging than fiction as nonagenarian Gilda Love dramatically changes when he is asked to take care of an abandoned three-year-old.

Sheffield DocFest announced June 16 the Focus: Filmmaker Talent initiative, devised by Guest Curator Asif Kapadia who has invited six filmmakers to make a short documentary, in and around Sheffield, during the festival. All filming is to be undertaken in a single day and the final work will be screened on the last day of Sheffield DocFest. The initiative is supported by Amazon Studios, Canon and The Kurious.

BDE talks to producer Lorine Plagnol who will be in Sheffield this week taking part in MeetMarket with her company Sungazer’s latest project Dalton’s Dream. This is a feature doc about UK X Factor winner Dalton Harris. As a young, queer musical star from Jamaica, he is seeking love and acceptance in a world that isn’t always sympathetic toward him. The film, currently in post-production, is co-directed by Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown.

Doc Society will be a major presence at Sheffield DocFest this week. The UK not for profit foundation, which has run the BFI Doc Society Fund since 2018, will have 10 films screening in the festival, including the world premiere in competition of Kim Hopkins’ crowd-pleaser A Bunch Of Amateurs, sold by MetFilms, and presents 6 works-in-progress. Doc Soc’s Shanida Scotland and Sandra Whipham tell BDE what to expect.

The new doc A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, directed by Mark Cousins and produced by Adam Dawtrey and Mary Bell, is one of the most high profile projects presented at this week’s MeetMarket at Sheffield DocFest. “When you look inside her imagination, you encounter this kind of Leonardo Da Vinci untrammeled thing where science and art, left and right, all combine,” Cousins tells BDE of his subject, the late Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.

“Time,” director Barney Douglas tells Business Doc Europe when asked just how he managed to prise tennis star John McEnroe so far out of his shell in his revealing and intimate new feature documentary, McEnroe, receiving its international premiere at Sheffield Doc Fest in advance of its UK release next month.

Five female Nepali filmmakers are attending DocFest looking for financial partners on their projects, as well as to investigate networking opportunities. They are in Sheffield as part of the #Docs Connect Taskovski training program supported by British Council’s Gender Film Programme. “This collaboration with the British Council Nepal is a further step towards building a stronger documentary filmmaking base in Nepal,” comments Taskovski Films founder, Irena Taskovski.

A deeply prescient and gently revealing documentary, One Day in Ukraine delivers just as the title states…a snapshot of one day in a country under siege as ordinary people (and sometimes extraordinary ones) go about their lives, whether it be preparing food or walking devastated streets, heavily armed and ready to fight.

During Sheffield DocFest Industry three works-in-progress (to be pitched June 28) and five new projects from Ukraine are presented to buyers, financiers, sales reps and festivals working within the international doc sector. These new projects complement the 14 works selected across the festival’s Film and Alternative Realities programmes. The Ukraine presence at Sheffield is arranged in association with Docudays UA, whose Head of Industry, Darya Bassel, talks to BDE.

A group of dogged cinephiles who meet every Monday night to socialise, drink cups tea and show their films are the heroes of Kim Hopkins’ new documentary A Bunch Of Amateurs, sold by MetFilms and receiving its world premiere in International Competition at Sheffield DocFest this week. The director sits down for a brew with Business Doc Europe.