Maciek Hamela’s Ukrainian documentary In The Rearview won the main grand jury award in the international competition at Sheffield DocFest, which recorded a 17% increase in its delegate attendance for 2023.
In The Rearview, a Poland-France-Ukraine co-production, follows Ukrainian people fleeing their country in the days following last year’s invasion by Russia.
Scroll down for the feature film winners
A debut feature film for Polish director Hamela, it debuted at Poland’s Docs Against Gravity Film Festival in May, before screening in the Cannes ACID sidebar. Israel-based sales company Cinephil handles world sales.
“Crafted with intimacy and delicate respect, we as a jury were stunned by the brilliant simplicity of this film which makes us yellow - passengers upon a universal odyssey of survival and exodus,” said a statement from international competition jury Kim Longinotto, Rodrigo Reyes and Vinay Shukla.
A special mention went to Jing Guo and Dingding KE’s three-hour Chinese title Stone Town, about the imminent changes in the country’s easternmost fishing town.
Delegate increase
The 2023 edition saw a 17% increase in the number of attending delegates, with over 2550 from more than 60 countries (up from 2188 last year).
More than 190 industry professionals from 93 companies and 19 countries took in-person meetings at the festival’s market. The festival will continue with a monthly DocNights screening programme, bringing titles from the event to audiences in Sheffield and now London via Bertha Dochouse, throughout the year.
First feature
Jude Chehab’s US-Lebanese title Q won the international first feature competition, which is supported by Netflix. The debut feature sees Chehab investigate her mother’s adherence to a closed-off, all-female religious sect in Syria.
“From the first frame this story engrosses the viewer cinematically and emotionally, bringing with it the sense that we are witnessing the birth of a powerful new filmmaking voice,” said a statement from the first feature jury Sonja Henrici, Anna Higgs and Rosa Ruth Boesten. “The audience is invited to become an intimate witness to a filmmaker’s – and a daughter’s – enquiry, as we see three generations of women coming to terms with the impact of their involvement with a secretive Islamic movement on their family.”
The Tim Hetherington award, given to a film and filmmaker that best reflect the legacy of photojournalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington, who was killed while covering the 2011 Libyan civil war, was given to Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days In Mariupol. The film, about a team of Ukrainian journalists documenting the atrocities of the ongoing war, debuted at Sundance in January, where it won the World Cinema – Documentary audience award.
The festival hosted four pitch sessions for emerging directors to pitch their non-fiction projects. Zahraa Ghandour’s Women Of My Life, an investigation into the ‘disappeared’ women of Iraq; won the £100,000 Film & TV Funding award; while Lilyana Torres and Carlos Morales’ I Want to Kill My Grandfather, an investigation into the effect of Mexico’s criminal underworld on families, took the £20,000 development prize.
The BBC Storyville Development Pitch, which invited filmmakers to pitch to be part of a new development programme at DocFest, was shared between Mia Harvey and Ayo Akinwolere’s With Woman and Lukasz Konopa’s Kashpirovsky.
Sheffield DocFest 2023 film winners
International Competition
Grand Jury award – In The Rearview (Ukr-Pol-Fr) dir. Maciek Hamela
Special mention – Stone Town (China) dirs. Jing Guo, Dingding KE
International First Feature Competition Grand Jury award – Q (US-Leb) dir. Jude Chehab
Youth jury award – Anhell69 (Col-Rom-Fr-Ger) dir. Theo Montoya
Tim Hetherington award – 20 Days In Mariupol (Ukr) dir. Mstyslav Chernov
Special mention – Total Trust (Ger-Neth) dir. Jialing Zhang
Pitch Session award
Film & TV Funding Award – Women of my Life (Iraq) dir. Zahraa Ghandour
Development prize – I Want to Kill My Grandfather (Mex) dirs. Lilyana Torres, Carlos Morales
No comments yet