Sheffield Doc/Fest, one of the world’s foremost showcases for documentary filmmaking, have revealed their programme in full ahead of the festival next month. The programme includes 160 films and 25 alternate realities projects, a talk with Michael Moore alongside the (premiere) of his new film, and mini retrospectives on the recently departed Chantal Akerman and the very much alive D.A. Pennebaker, who’ll also appear in conversation.

As we have noted before with no small amount of pride, there are 20+ films made by members of Shooting People there, so we hope anyone who has a film at the festival will let the community know about it so we as delegates can be sure to watch them. In addition to this, we select five films from the wider programme that look of particular interest in a very strong year, two of which were made by the membership.

The Hard Stop (George Amponsah)

A British filmmaker whose profile seems likely to elevate in a major way soon, George Amponsah is a producer of feature and television documentaries, many of which explore otherwise untold black stories. Following features such as The Fighting Spirit, about a pair of Ghanian boxers with major aspirations, and The Importance of Being Elegant, about a peculiar Congolese fashion cult, Amponsah’s latest feature The Hard Stop is a hybrid doc examining the murder of Mark Duggan. Following the friends and families of the victim in the immediacy of the killing, Amponsah captures the outpouring of grief and anger in the community Duggan belonged to, and the condition of wider unrest and malaise that led into to the London Riots. Compelling, empathetic filmmaking from a strong voice in British documentary.

No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman)

The final film from legendary director Chantal Akerman might make for tough viewing given the circumstances of her death shortly after its making, but  will certainly be essential. No Home Movie, made as a tribute to her mother, is made of a series of conversations, some in person and some via skype, between daughter and mother (who also died between the film’s filming and release.) Apparently it is great as both a piece of art and as a gesture to her mother, as poignant and precise a document of domestic relations as Ackerman’s most renowned film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (which also screens at Doc/Fest amidst the mini-retrospective.)

Behemoth (Zhao Liang)

Zhao Liang’s Behemoth recently played in the ICA’s Frames of Representation festival, a rare screening for a director largely ignored in this country. It is another powerful, searingly critical documentary that strives to voice the silenced and represent the invisible from a director who has been doing so with increasing potency and aesthetic assurance for well over a decade now. Having tracked the ruinous effects of bureaucratic inefficiency and governmental corruption with films like Petition and Crime and Punishment, Liang moves away from China’s cities to Inner Mongolia for his latest, looking at the devastating effects of the human drive for industrial expansion on both humans and the land with this portrait of the region’s mining industry. A film of stunning compositions and transportive sound design, Behemoth is a visceral, confrontational piece of cinema that confirms Liang’s need to be seen on many more screens in the UK soon.

Notes on Blindness (James Spinney & Peter Middleton)

Adapted from a very popular short made a few years ago, James Spinney and Peter Middleton’s Notes on Blindness project spans theatrical and multimedia exhibition, appearing in different forms in both Doc/Fest’s feature film programme and its VR focused Alternative Realities strand. A document of a writer and academic whose slight deteriorated into total blindness, Notes on Blindness lips syncs actor readings to the diaries of the afflicted, making a complex and experimental examination into vision loss and what it means to see, and then not. Neurologist Oliver Sacks described the audio diaries as ‘the most extraordinary, precise, deep and beautiful account of blindness I have ever read.’ It looks like the filmmakers have done a great visual service to them too.

 Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)

Having worked as a cinematographer for twenty five years, Kirsten Johnson has a broad understanding of what it means to be a cinematographer and a women in the film industry. Her acclaimed new documentary Cameraperson repurposes footage shot across her career into a visual essay that muses on her work, life and the various questions and contradictions that have emerged through it, what it means to look and to record, the power of the image and the rewards of proactive engagement with it.

Sheffield Doc/Fest takes place from the 10-15th June. You can book individual tickets here, or write to us for details on how get a full delegate pass at a reduced rate.