Seen at Sheffield : Doc/Fest films with full reviews

A list of films fully reviewed* (with links) at Sheffield Doc/Fest

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

8 June

In alphabetical order, a list of films reviewed in full* at Sheffield Doc/Fest (with links) :


A Sinner in Mecca (2015)
Doublethink in Mecca : Being devotional despite inflicted modernity


A Young Patriot (2015)
Full circle in Shanxi province


Containment (2015)
Containment – the vessel and the djinn


Iris (2014)
Big glasses to Big Eyes


Monty Python : The Meaning of Live (2014)
Sheffield – God's own City ~ Michael Palin at The Crucible


The Nine Muses (2010)
The best of Sheffield Documentary Festival 2015 : in the John Akomfrah retrospective


End-notes

* The same reviews can also be found linked in A round-up of events at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015 (@sheffdocfest).


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Full circle in Shanxi province ?

This is a Festival review of A Young Patriot (2015)

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

19 June

This is a Festival review of A Young Patriot (2015)
from a screening and Q&A at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015 on Saturday 6 June at 12.30 p.m.

From the audience, the first question in the Q&A for the director of A Young Patriot (2015) was from The Agent, about why we see so much of Changtong as he is taking photographs (having failed to get a place at Chengdu University the first time, he is taking a degree in photography), but only have two glimpses of his photography : two images, in passing, on a screen, and a glimpse of the photos that he is sending by post to the school, in Shanxi province, where his fellow students and he taught for a few weeks in the summer.

Haibin Du said that he realized that he had not shown much of Changtong’s work. However, the answer, which he timed so as to be amusing, was that the subject himself was more interesting than his photography. Indeed, he got a laugh by saying that, but did not thereby allay one’s doubts about the ethics of his practice in filming :

The question had not been couched as one about exploitation, but it, and the answer given, imply that it could have been*. For, at least three times, we see this film’s subject (its so-called young patriot) expressing himself unnecessarily candidly through the medium of drink. Yet, apart from his younger brother, who leads him away through embarrassment at what Changtong is saying about him (not that, on any occasion, others are not embarrassed at Changtong’s naive dogma and repetition), no one is there to intervene and stop the filming – and could a man as wildly idealistic in a way to rival the character of Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin (in The Idiot – brilliantly adapted for film, in Estonia, in a screening seen at Cambridge Film Festival 2012) have given any meaningful consent ?


This film, in seven chapters, brought out the fact that the cinema-seats in the Vimeo-sponsored Screen 2 at the Showroom cinema in Sheffield are hardly the most luxurious in the world : it was at least ten minutes too long, and irremediably chronological, even if it did sometimes juxtapose places. It was mainly – apart from the pivotal excursion to Shanxi (though not treated as one by the film-maker : please see below) – set in Sichuan province, in Pingyao and, as mentioned, Chengdu.

Mao and lion.jpg

For a subject who was almost romantically attached to Mao, liking to sing (well, almost croon, in a higher pitch ?) his revolutionary songs**, maybe it made sense for us to have opening shots of, seemingly, a fading memorial to those times (unannounced, and wrongly identified by the producer afterwards, who also acted as translator, as Datong). If we had dwelt on those images and what they might have signified, could it have been a better film, and might we not have focused, and been more helpful in not doing so, not on Changtong’s extreme form of (historical) patriotism, but rather on his finding himself in modern China (if on him at all) ?

Several times, the film alludes to Tian'anmen Square, and to an (unstated) background, in the West, of knowing what that name means and what happened there : from the first, Chengtong is aware that there had been a protest, but believes that it had had a humane, even benign, outcome :

Not uniquely for a film-maker, Haibin Du chooses not only to leave Changtong in his ignorance (and, in a film that he later said that he has hopes might be seen in China, he does not inform the viewer), but also to concentrate on it as an ignorance that is specifically his – as part of his great dedication to Mao, and what he understands of the history of his country through that lens. That said, in a scene where we see Changtong and fellow students reciting words and singing in a vigil for an apparent anniversary of Tian'anmen Square (the massacre happened in 1989), it is clear that meaning has been generally lost or suppressed about it, and that they are just as much in the dark as he about what they commemorate.


Clearly, it would have been a different film, and not that of Haibin Du, to consider wider attitudes to, and understanding of, the past, but maybe film-makers have a duty not to take ‘the soft option’ in choosing their subject (or how to portray it : however important the topic of orca in captivity may be, does Blackfish (2013), for example, lose the opportunity to tell a totally coherent story about it ?). To allow oneself to be attracted to a very colourful figure such as Changtong may be normal, and almost necessarily full of emotional conflict and with scope for development, but perhaps a maker of documentaries needs to be aware of what it truly is about a subject that glisters to know it from gold, and to have a full appreciation of other stories that could have been told – or of a different construction to have been put upon this one.

Did one need to have asked what simply following Changtong’s story actually says about his lack of self-knowledge (and his growing and eventual disillusion, precipitated by what happens to his family, because of the Chinese equivalent of compulsory-purchase orders, and how resistance gains no benefit) ? In psychological terms, his adherence to a partial account of the co-eval past, in the kind of patriotism that he has adopted, always had to mean something more than an attractive premise for a film :

From the first, Changtong was really crying out for attention (if not unavoidably for that of a film-crew), but the film itself never seems to have engaged*** with what that was or signified (except that he almost had to be heading for a fall – which brings us back, again, to his naivety and whether he was a fit person to give consent). In relation to other Chinese people of his age, 1989 was (just about) part of his life, but not one of which he could have had direct experience or comprehension. Of course, the film did not have to give regard to the wider question of the state of knowledge, but the fact is that it did not.

It also, by not treating the events and experience of being in Shanxi as central to the chosen arc of Changtong’s story (although, cinematographically, it is obviously where the film is most alive, by creatively, and truly strikingly, directing the camera to all forms of local life – and, likewise, showing the difference that the students had made as volunteer teachers), held out for that time when life would break in on his lack of self-awareness, and leave him more bitter (maybe even depressed). That said, the film probably did not owe it to Changtong to show him his vocation (in seeming to enthuse the young village children quite effortlessly), or the fall for which he was heading.

We did hear, when asked about whether he had seen the film, that he had, somewhat nerve-wrackingly, been with its director at the back of the screening in Hong Kong. He told us that Changtong had borne it with what sounded like equanimity, seeming to have regarded it as a separate entity. Which maybe it is – maybe too separate from what could have been distilled from his life, not as apart from, but as part of the generality of modern China’s relationship with its own recent history ?

Seen at Sheffield : Doc/Fest films with full reviews


End-notes

* The question had also said how Chantong’s early flag-waving and declamation (in an old uniform of The Red Guard) had come into its own by being a genuine inspiration to the young children in Shanxi, and had even proudly bought and started flying the starred Chinese flag. (Not surprisingly, another question elicited being told that it was the ostentatious behaviour that had interested Haibin Du in his subject – character, not photographic aspirations.)

** By heart, and seemingly moved by their sentiments when he had finished a rendition (although one somehow doubted whether he could have laid his finger on what they really were, and their relevance to Mao’s days of struggle).

*** Inevitably, with hours of footage reduced to just a couple, one knows relatively little even of the onscreen contact between director and subject, let alone at other times.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

A round-up of events* at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015 (@sheffdocfest)

This is a summary account of events / screenings at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

9 June

This is a summary account, in a sentence each (well, almost), of events / screenings at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015 (5 to 10 June)

Congratulations to all nominees & winners at the #sheffdocfest 2015 Awards. Full listings can be viewed here http://t.co/AtWCZzVvOG

— Sheffield Doc/Fest (@sheffdocfest) June 12, 2015

Saturday 6 June

* 12.30 – A Young Patriot (2015) (Showroom Screen 2, Vimeo) – inadvertently raises questions both about one’s reasons for choosing a subject and what one has meaningful consent to film (reviewed here) – probably 10+ minutes too long

* 3.45 – Match Me ! How to Find Love in Modern Times (2014) (Odeon Screen 8) – the Q&A essentially confirmed what one had really already suspected, that it was not really about match-making, but had been made to be to complement the story of a couple who had met through a type of arranged yogic marriage – also probably 10+ minutes too long

* 7.00 – (screening at around 9.45) Mavis ! (2015) (The Botanical Gardens) – Mavis Staples is a figure whose musical significance is worth bringing to greater prominence, with the sort of voice that is normally called lived in and an impressive career, but fairly conventional / unremarkable in documentary terms themselves



Sunday 7 June

* 12.15 – Containment (2015) (Showroom Screen 2, Vimeo) – a title that IMDb (@IMDb) will have to disambiguate, as there are also two features of this name, but they will not skilfully look at a range of issues such as where nuclear waste comes from, serious mistakes in our understanding that prove to have been made in attempts to store and process it, and how (perhaps not a wholly integrated theme ?) we warn those in AD 12,000 of its existence / presence (reviewed here)

Isotopes, becquerels, control-rods, fission, reprocessing, contamination - not all used in @ContainmentDoc at @sheffdocfest , but reminders.

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 7, 2015

If one had not tarried, to talk to directors Robb Moss and Peter Galison after the Q&A, there might have been a chance to get to Imperialism or Inquiry : How Fair is Our Foreign Filming ? at 2.30 (ITV Town Hall Council Chamber) (or, at 3.30, How Interactive Content is Shaping the Future of Cinemas and Film Festivals (Memorial Hall, City Hall))...


* 5.45 – Iris (2014) (Odeon Screen 8) – unlike with Mavis !, a film that was not exactly awash with humility, although Iris Apfel is a great encourager and collector with definite tastes and flair, and where doing a deal – having justified the concept of haggling in its appropriate place – seemed part of the thrill of the chase in remorseless acquisitiveness (although tempered by giving archive material, both temporarily and permanently)

We admire Iris Apfel's obvious flair, but her acquisitiveness - though hardly unique - makes her hard to like much... pic.twitter.com/yZV32HrFx1

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 27, 2015

Monday 8 June

* 12.00 – The Nine Muses (2010) (Showroom Screen 1, AP Archive) – excellent melding of readings (Naxos Audiobooks) from sourced such as Dante, Homer, Beckettt’s trilogy (Molloy and The Unnameable) with music, images and displayed quotations – directive, but largely through meditative juxtaposition of powerful source and new material (reviewed here – and as prophetically Tweeted ?) :

So far, two main approaches from @sheffdocfest films : a broadly chronological unfolding (sometimes in real time) and complementary strands.

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 7, 2015

Best film that @THEAGENTAPSLEY has seen at @sheffdocfest so far, The Nine Muses (2010) - great for Beckettt lovers ! https://t.co/v2sBv03Lj6

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 8, 2015

Little White Lies (@LWLies) had this to say : Even more of a revelation was the screening of Akomfrah's The Nine Muses (2010), which effectively demands the cinema experience. Abstract, demanding but never less than compelling, we can't pretend to have grasped its every free-associating allusion, but its intoxicating riffs on diasporic identity and memory are assembled with the eye of an obvious master.

Here are our five top picks from the 2015 @sheffdocfest: http://t.co/o6s6vh6oG4 pic.twitter.com/rdwDIpBIY1

— Little White Lies (@LWLies) June 17, 2015

* 2.15 – Jungle Sisters (2015) (Showroom Screen 2, Vimeo) – the combination of an incipient headache and motion-sequences that felt overly jerky did not make for a screening that could be sustained

* 4.00 – Influence Film Club : Almost There (2014) (The Adelphi Room, The Crucible Theatre) – a pleasant chance to meet, off Twitter, the directors and producers and share and chat with them, as well as seeing a trailer and a clip, and hear them interviewed

A @sheffdocfest discussion with Almost There directors Aaron Wickenden/ Dan Rybicky, Tim Horsburghof @Kartemquin : http://t.co/yYpBiy0o62

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 8, 2015

Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden (directors) and Tim Horsburgh (Kartemquin Films)

* 6.00 – The Making of Long Lost Family (The Crucible Theatre) – apologies if it is wrongly recalled as in Rotherham, but, anyway, the story of Yorkshire twins, only one of whom knew of the other’s existence, and what the programme did to help her track down her sister, who turned out to have been living just three miles away the whole time, and even to have been registered with the same medical practice – as Nicky Campbell tellingly described it, they became young girls again as they ran towards each other, and Davina McCall could scarcely contain herself that they were there to join the panel on the stage of The Crucible, which was just one unexpectedly moving moment in this session about Long Lost Family, and its commitment to quality and care for its subjects

* 8.15 – Meet the Makers : The Revolution will be Televised (The Crucible Theatre) – despite the fact that the chat was ably chaired by Owen Jones (@OwenJones84), nothing altered the fact that comedy’s effects can be wildly subjective (in a Freud-like way, one can see that something is amusing, but not laugh), and this seemed less hard hitting than much other British satirical work, and more like Dom Joly’s stunts (with a political slant)

Owen Jones

 
Tuesday 9 June

* 10.30 – The BBC Interview : Charlotte Moore (Controller, BBC1) interviewed by Alex Graham (Festival Chair) – proof (one has done it in Q&As, and in interviewing Ken Loach) that one can be so keen that those listening are aware of the store of one’s knowledge that one swamps the interviewee with propositions (mixed up with a question somewhere), and then, lively to engage, irritatingly (?)** cuts short the answer…

* 12.45 – Newsnight and documentary : Ian Katz (Editor, Newsnight) interviewed by Nick Fraser (Executive Producer, Storyville) – Nick Fraser, by contrast, used fewer words, but to better effect, and integrated clips highly appropriately into talking to Ian Katz (@iankatz1000), who spoke with such a fluency and command of language that he well conveyed what helped us understand his editorial approach and decisions at, and hopes for the use of documentary for, Newsnight and in relation to other BBC factual output

Ian Katz

* 3.00 – The Channel 4 Interview : Dan Reed (maker of documentaries (and feature films)) interviewed by Ralph Lee (Deputy Chief Creative Officer, Channel 4) – flagging too much for little other than sustenance by caffeine and chocolate brownie (courtesy of those welcoming people upstairs in The Influence Film Club) and an energy drink (donated by delegate Ravinder Surah), but with little glimpses through Dan Reed’s lens into worlds of depravity, violence and threat

Ralph Lee (L) interviews Dan Reed (R)

* 6.15 – A Sinner in Mecca (2015) (Odeon Screen 8) – despite director / cinematographer Parvez Sharma’s hope that his film was not self indulgent, and the insights that he wished to share – through going on a Hajj – about Mecca and other holy sites, and the ruling Saudi dynasty and its attitude to the past, how he pursued, and attained, the object of his quest seemed to stay very personal to him and his experience (unsure now : see after-thought – and, which is more considered, the review now here)

On @parvezsharma's A Sinner in Mecca at @sheffdocfest, reflecting on Arthur Koestler's thoughts, v. in / v. out of communism / Christianity.

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 10, 2015

Watching @parvezsharma's A Sinner in Mecca (2015) at @sheffdocfest had me in knots about what risk he ran, @kingqueen3065 @BeresfordPeter !

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 11, 2015

* 8.45 – DS30 (2014) (Odeon Screen 8) – three films (the first two, being contemporary to the NUM strike, between them totalling around 14 mins, and the third around 33 mins) that, respectively, documented or revisited (a commission for AV Festival in 2014) the mood and music of the time, the latter as made by Test Dept and The South Wales Striking Miners' Choir :

Popular @camfilmfest 2014 film @EnemyWithin1984 tells the story of the miners strike from the miners themselves. #Orgreave #CamFF

— Cambridge Film Fest (@camfilmfest) June 12, 2015

Good, @MusicMattersR3, to hear @tomservice talking to @Test_Dept after seeing them after the @sheffdocfest screening of DS30 (2014) ->

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 13, 2015

-> Less obviously than @BurundiDrummers, when @THEAGENTAPSLEY asked about influences, @Test_Dept named Penderecki, Gorecki, Shostakovich.

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 13, 2015

Burundi and Kodo too of course! https://t.co/7aK9EN2J1c

— Test Dept (@Test_Dept) June 17, 2015

[...]



Wednesday 10 June


* 11.00 The Awards Ceremony (The Crucible Theatre) – a pleasure to be 'inside' this event, hearing the wit and versatility of Jeremy Hardy as host first hand, both before and during :

The ever-entertaining and sharp Jeremy Hardy hosted for @sheffdocfest at @crucibletheatre - here, looking balletic ? pic.twitter.com/quC6ChLotX

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 10, 2015

Day 6 at @sheffdocfest, and back at the @crucibletheatre for the awards ceremony, setting up photos for the hopefuls pic.twitter.com/E09oZ7gr7e

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 10, 2015

* 2.00 – Volunteers' Secret Screening : The Confessions of Thomas Quick (2015) (The Void, Sheffield Hallam) :

Apart from ducking out of Jungle S. for image-quality, the volunteers' free surprise screening felt gratuitous for re-enacting violent acts.

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 10, 2015

* 6.30 Monty Python : The Meaning of Live (2014) (The Crucible Theatre) – to Holly Gilliam’s (Terry Gilliam’s daughter’s) impulse to get a camera to document what happened at the script-reading for Monty Python (Almost) Live, and afterwards, much is owed, in this skilful snapshot of the surviving Pythons by Roger Graef and James Rogan (reviewed here)

The Pythons at @TheO2 in Roger Graefand @J_Rogan1's masterly Monty Python : The Meaning of Live (2014) very suitably closed @sheffdocfest.

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 11, 2015

It was @THEAGENTAPSLEY's pleasure, as @sheffdocfest volunteer, Doc/Lovers-wristband-holder and writer, to be there ! https://t.co/w9XjVPD7He

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 11, 2015

To be expanded / continued...

A new sign-off, following @sheffdocfest... A:\emptydisk\recharge

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 13, 2015

End-notes

* These Tweets refer :

Not of all the sheep that have been much around @sheffdocfest, but a round-up of events / screenings so far : http://t.co/233OsbI9ns

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 9, 2015

** Assured by Charlotte Moore that the style of the interview had not felt antagonistic, one still felt uncomfortable watching more than short sections of it, and others did not disagree with having been disquietened.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)