Doc/Fest: 2019 programme launched
The full programme for 2019's Doc/Fest has been announced.
Headline screenings include documentaries on Diego Maradona, David Hockney and Manchester voguing collective House of Ghetto.
Talks include author Nick Hornby and filmmaker Carol Morley, as well as live performances by Rodney P, Bo Ningen and DJs from DISCWOMAN and Pxssy Palace.
"This year's Doc/Fest celebrates local talent, internationalism, creativity and discovery; looking at the world with new eyes and giving a platform to a multitude of voices and ideas," said interim director of Doc/Fest Melanie Iredale.
Receiving its world premiere at the festival is The Campaigners by Sheffield director Jamie Taylor, which takes an inside look at Woodseats Working Men's Football Club.
54% of the films in the programme are made by women.
German auteur director Werner Herzog will be speaking at the festival after a screening of his new film Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin.
This year's festival also sees the return of the Alternate Realities strand of free digital art, which features 28 interactive experiences at Site Gallery and Sheffield Hallam's Performance Lab.
"This year the Alternate Realities programme returns with a focus on our sensibilities; our ability to interpret, understand and appreciate the world of the aesthetic and the experiential," said curator Dan Tucker.
"With 50% of the projects made or co-created by women and an all-women line-up of key speakers in the Summit we are working alongside a larger number of women artists than ever before".
Alternate Realities also features Spectre, which takes audiences on "a personalised journey that tells a cautionary tale of computational propaganda, technology and democracy."
We interviewed creators Barnaby Francis and Daniel Howe in May's edition of Now Then.
The European premiere of The Quiet One about former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman was dropped from the programme in April.
Activists called for the screening and a planned Q&A with Wyman to be cancelled due to the circumstances in which he met his second wife, who later reported that she had first had sex with Wyman when she was 14.
The Radical Broadcasts strand will look back at the work of television director Mike Dibb, who co-created John Berger's groundbreaking art documentary Ways of Seeing.
Directors Stacey Dooley and Paul Greengrass will give talks at the festival, along with Jenn Nkiru whose short film Black to Techno receives its UK premiere in Sheffield.
A number of films at this year's festival focus on the trans community, including Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth by Jeanie Finlay, which follows one trans man as he starts a family.
At the Site Gallery, a video game called Interactive Portraits: Trans People in Japan by Sheffield artist Zoyander Street uses "the nostalgic style of early gaming to create a connection with its contributors."
Other speakers include Bradley Wiggins, Nick Broomfield and fashion writer Chidera Eggerue, also known as The Slumflower.
Doc/Fest runs from 6 to 11 June at venues across Sheffield. Tickets are available for individual screenings. The Doc/Lover Wristband which includes 12 films is £69 (£59.50 concessions).
