ACTION! READY, SET …

I’ve been covering DocFest in these pages for over ten years now, and each year I can barely contain my excitement when the internationally renowned film festival rolls back into town.

Six solid days of watching films, discussing films and discovering films – what could be better? But on top of all that, we get the chance to hear from and talk to the people who make them. And there’s no predicting which films will win over the attendees for the coveted audience award.

Last year it was a charming, funny film about a bunch of amateur filmmakers from Bradford that stole our hearts. Three years earlier, it went to a harrowing story filmed in a Syrian hospital in war-torn Aleppo.

With all the anticipation running around in my head, I went to the launch event in the Showroom a few weeks ago. This place has been the home of DocFest since its humble beginnings as a documentary-themed weekend of films 30 years ago. I was hoping to have a quick chat with some of the team behind the festival, but most of all I wanted to see what 2023 had in store. After a quick coffee and a pastry, we were all herded into the cinema for the big reveal.

As ever, the breadth and range of events is inspiring and daunting in equal measure: world premieres, live podcasts, post-film Q&A events, alternate reality installations and much more. There’s far too much going on to summarise succinctly (there’s a handy online programme at sheffdocfest.com), but I’ll scratch the surface and