Doc/Fest through the lens, Part 1
by Ray Pride
In its fifteenth year, Sheffield Doc/Fest still manages to come across as an upstart, with its range of intelligent programming and diverse menu of panels, seminars, masterclasses and events like Meet Market, which pairs filmmakers with commissioning editors in short sessions. And, as a non-premiere festival, Sheffield emphasizes quality, but also the assembly of like minds. Under gray Northern England skies, bright exchanges lit up the days and nights.
At the end of the event, which ran from November 5-9, another strength was added: the absorption of Oxford's BritDoc, creating a single super-UK documentary event for 2009. The 1,300 attending delegates included 350 from overseas, and over 140 docs from 20 countries were shown. Events tended toward matching documentarians with commissioning editors and producers. Festival programmers were underfoot as well, in sessions and in the Café-Bar in the Showroom Cinema center of the festival.
By my count, there were over 40 special sessions in the five days of Doc/Fest, such as Masterclasses with Nick Broomfield, James Marsh (Man on Wire) and with DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, an interview with Michael Palin and a panel asking: "Theatrical Documentaries R.I.P?" which I think I'm sad I missed. Here, at "Inside vs Outside: Where Stories Come From an Why It Matters," moderator Liz Mermin (Beauty Shop of Kabul) goes toe-to-toe with filmmaker and a master of rapport with his subjects, Sean McAllister (Liberace of Baghdad, Japan: A Story Of Love And Hate).
Naomi Wolf offers impassioned answers at the Q&A I moderated after the first screening of The End Of America.
After Margaret Brown won a John Grierson award for The Order of Myths (including £2000), the small, heavy sculptured head of one of the fathers of documentary got passed around to friends for the rest of a long evening, including first-in-line Astra Taylor (The Examined Life).
Cynthia Lester, director of My Mother's Garden, contemplates John Grierson at close range.
In its fifteenth year, Sheffield Doc/Fest still manages to come across as an upstart, with its range of intelligent programming and diverse menu of panels, seminars, masterclasses and events like Meet Market, which pairs filmmakers with commissioning editors in short sessions. And, as a non-premiere festival, Sheffield emphasizes quality, but also the assembly of like minds. Under gray Northern England skies, bright exchanges lit up the days and nights.
At the end of the event, which ran from November 5-9, another strength was added: the absorption of Oxford's BritDoc, creating a single super-UK documentary event for 2009. The 1,300 attending delegates included 350 from overseas, and over 140 docs from 20 countries were shown. Events tended toward matching documentarians with commissioning editors and producers. Festival programmers were underfoot as well, in sessions and in the Café-Bar in the Showroom Cinema center of the festival.
By my count, there were over 40 special sessions in the five days of Doc/Fest, such as Masterclasses with Nick Broomfield, James Marsh (Man on Wire) and with DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, an interview with Michael Palin and a panel asking: "Theatrical Documentaries R.I.P?" which I think I'm sad I missed. Here, at "Inside vs Outside: Where Stories Come From an Why It Matters," moderator Liz Mermin (Beauty Shop of Kabul) goes toe-to-toe with filmmaker and a master of rapport with his subjects, Sean McAllister (Liberace of Baghdad, Japan: A Story Of Love And Hate).
Naomi Wolf offers impassioned answers at the Q&A I moderated after the first screening of The End Of America.
After Margaret Brown won a John Grierson award for The Order of Myths (including £2000), the small, heavy sculptured head of one of the fathers of documentary got passed around to friends for the rest of a long evening, including first-in-line Astra Taylor (The Examined Life).
Cynthia Lester, director of My Mother's Garden, contemplates John Grierson at close range.
Michael Jones is the film festival editor at Variety.com. 
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