SHEFFIELDDOC/FEST CASE STUDY
well received at a typically packed-out showing but despite the prestige of this programming slot it wasn’t the most talked about screening of the festival. That honour was saved for the UK premiere of Three Identical Strangers ; as the title might suggest, this film tells the story of three men who discover at the age of 19 that they are triplets separated at birth. Blessed with the documentarian’s dream of a strong narrative arc, the film also benefitted from some behind-the-scenes insight from the director, TimWardle, at a masterclass preceding the screening. Tim talked about how strange it felt after 15 years of attending Doc/Fest to now be on stage and how his work in development allowed him to bide his time until the perfect directorial project came long. “My job is generally to sift through hundreds of ideas… and work out which ones are worth pitching to the BBC, Channel 4 or whoever to make. But when you do that job you have a very high bar [for good ideas].” Timmentioned that this story first came to him in a bare bones form through an external producer and that people had been trying – and failing – to make this film for decades. “Instantly I knew this was the single best narrative I’d ever heard and I had to make this film.” It’s no wonder that attendees descended en masse to the screening. The hosting cinema had to put on extra showings to placate the hundreds of filmmakers waiting in the standby line. The festival continues to growby catering to regulars and first-time attendees like filmmaker Alexandria Bombach who flew in from the USA for a Q&A at the European Premiere of her latest film On Her Shoulders . The documentary follows the life of Nadia Murad, a Yazidi survivor of
“I see people holding back because they’re not making the exact thing they want to be making”
is when I see people holding back because they’re not making the exact thing they want to be making,” she says. “It’s just so important that you’re always shooting, because you’re growing by leaps and bounds every time you make something.” Asked for one takeaway for Doc/ Fest attendees and other aspiring documentarians, Alexandria says: “Don’t wait for anyone else to give you permission to start exploring your ideas.” This year’s Doc/Fest programme included more than 200 projects with 37 World, 18 International, 24 European and 70 UK film premieres alongside a varied schedule of pitching sessions, talks from filmmakers and commissioners, VR/AR installations and on-demand access to films. Anyone who went to Doc/Fest would come away inspired with some technical advice to enhance their practice too. There are Q&A sessions and filmmakers linger at the end of screenings to answer questions on a one-to-one basis. If you miss the speaker at the screening there’s a good chance you’ll spot them around the city or in a bar at some point during the festival. The ticket price can be a barrier for some so if it sounds up your street get in quick; the lightning tickets for the 2019 festival are on sale from 5 July until 31 August and go for around £191. Leave it until the last minute and you could end up paying more than double that.
genocide and human trafficking, but focuses on why the world requires survivors and advocates to continually relive their traumas in order to provoke action. With a number of her recent films shot in Afghanistan and Iraq, I wondered if it felt surreal for Alexandria to have those two contrasting sides to her life; shooting in war zones and going back to her normal life of attending film festivals. “With the kind of films I do, I don’t have a life. I’m constantly travelling, I live on the road 11 months of the year,” she says. “I eat, sleep and breathe this work. So it doesn’t feel like that stark contrast… but there is a lot of sacrifice in that.” For this project Alexandria was working solidly for 18 months. She was originally commissioned to produce a short but realised the story warranted a longer piece. “I made the film in secret for a long time; I felt that if I were to make a short film, there’d only be so much I could tell and we were the only ones with access at that time and it just would have been a waste.” Certainly unconventional, shooting most of the film before persuading the production company that this was the film they needed had the benefit of giving Alexandria control to shape the narrative. “We didn’t tell anyone about the film until it was announced so I got to make it any way I wanted to.” While that intensity of filmmaking is a dream for some and a nightmare for others, Alexandria explained that it’s a life there for the taking. “What’s important when you’re just starting out is making sure you’re making a lot. The scariest part
More information The next Sheffield Doc/Fest runs from 6-11 June 2019. sheffdocfest.com
ABOVE Alexandria Bombach spent 18 months on her documentary film about a genocide survivor.
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AUTUMN 2018 PRO MOVIEMAKER
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