After delving into the rich program of Sheffield Doc/Fest, we are bringing you our 10 favourite feature documentaries of this year’s edition. Read on, they’re awesome!
Launched on June 10th, the 2020 Sheffield Doc/Fest showcases online over 115 documentaries from 50 countries, including feature films, shorts and immersive or interactive works.
After enjoying the rich selection of feature and short documentaries featured by the festival, we’ve published our Top 10 Short Documentaries of this year’s edition a few days ago. Let’s now highlight our 10 favourite feature documentaries, which UK-based audiences can still enjoy until July 10th on Sheffield Doc/Fest VOD Platform “Selects”.
Flint (Dir. Anthony Baxter)
Filmed over a period of five years, Flint is the untold story of the man-made disaster that continues to haunt the United States. Narrated by Alec Baldwin, the film shows what happens when a community loses all faith in authority.
Flint reveals how the city’s life-threatening water crisis has gradually evolved into a lack of accountability and trust in authorities, a battle between science and pseudoscience, and an institutionalised failure in local infrastructure. Focusing not only on the crisis itself, but the enduring issues of partisan politics and environmental resources on which it continues to shed light, Flint is an illuminating look at a modern American tragedy.
Mon Amour (Dir. David Teboul)
A man sets out to the very far end of Siberia seeking answers by asking villagers to share their own experience of love. He encountered love once in Paris, years ago, but since lost his loved one. By confronting himself to those men and women living in the frozen lands filled with sorrow, love and despair, he finally accepts the mourning of his own story. This cinematic journey from inner darkness to the plain white of iced snow, these love and death stories, are shot in such a beautiful manner that in the end serenity overcomes sadness.
Space Journey (Dir. Carlos Araya)
A tour across Chile’s diverse stories through the observation of bus stops and their passenger’s conversations. The desert, cities, ocean, and snowy peaks are the settings for this mosaic of day-to-day situations where humour, drama, and absurdity are combined. A film that delves into the conflicts of a diverse and unequal country colliding with the desires of the newly arrived immigrants.
The Story of Plastic (Dir. Deia Schlosberg)
The Story of Plastic unearths the real causes of our growing plastic pollution problem and the twisted narratives we have been fed by industry to distract us and displace blame. Depicting a world rapidly becoming overrun with toxic material, The Story of Plastic brings into focus this alarming, man-made crisis. Striking footage, original animations, and archival material combine to point to the disastrous impact of the plastics industry, shedding new light on a pressing global challenge that threatens the life and health of animals, humans, and civilization on Earth.
A speculative film about time and how we weave the past into the present and our possible future. Set in the small desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the film takes place in the shadow of the world’s first commercial Spaceport. Subtly set in a near future when space travel has begun, the film follows five residents in the town. Combining documentary cinema, archival footage, experimental virtual reality images and an improvised score by Bill Frisell, Truth or Consequences is a lyrical meditation on progress, history, and how we navigate a sense of loss within ourselves and within a changing world.
We’re Still Here (Dir. Melissa Herman)
London’s housing is under attack. We’re Still Here was filmed over four years as developers – hand in glove with councils and housing associations – knock down estates to build housing that ordinary people can’t afford. But from young mums and key workers in east London to the neighbours of the Grenfell Tower fire victims the fightback has begun.
Southern Journey (Revisited) (Dir. Rob Curry, Tim Plester)
Traversing the back-roads of the Southern United States in search of the people and places so often ignored by the mainstream media, Southern Journey (Revisited) is both a music documentary and a road movie. Set against the incendiary backdrop of the 2018 midterm elections, and accompanied by a glorious soundtrack of blues and bluegrass, hollers and spirituals, the film retraces the route of an iconic song-collecting trip from the late 1950s – Alan Lomax’s so-called “Southern Journey” – seeking out echoes of the past and clues to the future.
Me and the Cult Leader (Dir. Atsushi Sakahara)
Atsushi Sakahara, a victim of the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo’s subway system, travels with Hiroshi Araki, an executive of Aleph (formerly Aum Shinrikyo), the attack’s perpetrators, visiting their respective hometowns and the university they both attended. Conversations unfold, building intimacy: we learn why Araki joined the infamous organization led by Shoko Asahara and why, still, Araki remains an executive member of the cult, even though he was not directly involved in any of the crimes.
Faith and Branko (Dir. Catherine Harte)
This intimate story chronicles the relationship between musicians Faith and Branko over seven years. In 2011, Faith travels from England to Serbia to learn gypsy accordion. She meets Roma violinist Branko and despite language barriers, they fall in love through music. Captivated by their musical chemistry, they marry and take their duo abroad. As much as Faith is free-spirited and privileged, Branko is untraveled and attached to his family, but they each believe that the other will better their lives. The relationship is tested by the realisation of their differences and that music may be all they have in common.
You Think The Earth Is A Dead Thing (Dir. Florence Lazar)
Just one of the many far-reaching impacts of the slave trade on human history is on agriculture and horticulture. While the French plantation owners on the Caribbean island of Martinique had their gardens laid out, Versailles-style, their enslaved workers continued their tradition of using medicinal wild herbs.
Nowadays these herbs represent one of several resources through which the people of Martinique counter the health and ecological ravage caused by the use of pesticides on the banana plantations. Farmers are reclaiming uncultivated lands to grow indigenous vegetables, without any industrial pesticides; they fight boldly for simple biodiversity.
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