The best of Sheffield DocFest 2023

Sheffield DocFest, the UK’s leading documentary festival, triumphantly returned this year for its 30^th anniversary and celebrated with a slew of feature film and TV premieres from around the world. The festival, which took place in-person from the 14^th to 19^th June, and will continue running in an online capacity from the 19^th to 25^th June, was powered by a programme that represented the wide-ranging possibilities within nonfiction, exhibiting no boundaries for how filmmakers are approaching aesthetic, narrative, theme and character. Here are our highlights from this year’s edition:

Transition

Perhaps the highlight of DocFest 2023 was Transition, a truly unique character-driven documentary with a central subject so distinctive, one whose journey audiences will want to long continue following after seeing the film. It tracks the story of journalist and filmmaker Jordan Bryon, a trans man who has been covering the conflict in Afghanistan for many years, reporting to global outlets and earning the trust of locals through his empathetic approach to reporting.

Co-directed by Jordan himself, plus Emmy winner Monica Villamizar, the crux of Transition is the titular journey, including the subject’s efforts to complete gender-affirming surgery, which reaches a critical point when the Taliban retake control of the country and he’s granted unprecedented access into their territory. Naturally, it’s a thought-provoking essay on cultural views on race and gender identity, but also an incredibly heartfelt ode to friendship, as we become deeply drawn to Jordan’s dynamic with his closest allies, Afghan filmmaker Teddy and Iranian photojournalist Kiara. It’s an astonishing arc – don’t be surprised if this excellent feature is optioned by a scripted producer.

Citizen Sleuth

Potentially the most important contribution to true crime media in years, Citizen Sleuth arrives at a time when the global appetite for the nonfiction medium is at its peak, and serves as a stunning critique of the genre by telling the story of a podcaster who immensely benefited from its popular appeal, for better and worse. Directed by Chris Kasick, a protege of The Thin Blue Line filmmaker Errol Morris, this tremendously insightful and hugely entertaining film tracks the life of Emily Nestor, a young Clarice Starling fan whose scepticism around the details of the death of 20-year-old Jaleayah Davis mount her on a campaign for justice through starting her own podcast.

She becomes a full-time sleuth when her following quickly explodes, but it comes at the cost of selling out and potentially ruining the life of innocent people, which we understand is a quagmire faced by many of those in the field of true crime when they know they need to continue the narrative even if they don’t necessarily want to, or the case has actually closed. By presenting his film through a familiar aesthetic that we associate so heavily with popular documentaries, and taking time to become closely acquainted with his lead subject, Kasick wields his power when he really scrutinises the subject of his own film, morphing Citizen Sleuth from the sort of commercial true crime film that Netflix viewers would typically cosy up to, to one that highlights the danger of that very sort of rote storytelling.

Tish

Just like how Citizen Sleuth emerges at a time when the creative industry desperately requires some self-awareness, Paul Sng’s moving biopic of British social realist photographer Tish Murtha cuts deep into the historical classism of the UK scene. The filmmaker memorialises Tish’s life and work by building a tapestry made up of Tish’s beautiful photos taken throughout the 70s and 80s, which still hold so much emotion and truth in their intimate depiction of marginalised communities.

These are accompanied by contemporary testimonies from family members, friends and close collaborators who speak to her daughter Ella throughout the film. When learning of the impact that these photos had and the weight they carried for the communities at the heart of them, one questions why more Britons weren’t more closely acquainted with Tish’s work. The answer sadly lies in the knowledge of her unsuccessful application for public funds, which feels intrinsically tied to an elitist creative industry. Her fearless focus on the Northern working classes was sorely needed during Thatcher’s rule, and certainly again today as the discourse around accessibility rages on.

Wham!

An instant classic in the canon of “what to watch on a sad day”, this documentary of the titular pop band is as infectiously joyous as their timeless single Wake Me Up. Biopics inherently carry the prospect of presenting a varnished version of the truth but there’s less risk associated with the uplifting story of Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael, two childhood best pals from Bushey who fell in love with the funk and pop records of their youth and formed a band together to ambitiously channel some of the same energy.

The story of Wham! is a deeply wholesome one, with little of the controversies that often characterise the most successful artists, and much more of the beloved qualities that highlight the best of them (case in point – Wham’s culturally groundbreaking trip to China), complete with the sort of beautiful farewell concert that fans wish was possible for so many other beloved bands. Chris Smith (Sr, American Movie) is able to smoothly assemble his footage thanks to Ridgeley’s mum, who tracked her son’s career with a scrapbook to mark each chapter of their record-breaking success, which serves as an endearing visual motif in telling their story.

20 Days in Mariupol

Every year, there’s always a documentary film that has an enormous impact on its audience for the way it climbs deeply into the frontlines of an ongoing conflict and presents it in its rawest form. For Sama and City of Ghosts stand out in recent years for their unflinching portraits of Syria, both of which were showcased at previous editions of DocFest. 20 Days in Mariupol, a Ukraine-focused doc from Associated Press journalist and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, is a shattering compendium of the war videography that he captured during the Siege of Mariupol.

His images – which most of us will have seen throughout the recent news cycle – are effectively contextualised through his narration of the brutal events, which include the bombing of a maternity hospital, plus eye-opening sequences beyond the hospital that highlight the worst of humanity, such as when we see how his footage was distorted in the Russian news cycle as “fake news”, horrendously misrepresenting real victims as actors. It’s an unshakeable viewing experience, but a vital one.

Musanna Ahmed

To watch films from this year’s festival between the 19^th and 25^th June 2023, please visit the Sheffield DocFest Online here.