Doc/Fest announces Joshua Oppenheimer and Monty Python in its 2015 line-up
Sheffield Doc/Fest, the UK’s premier celebration of documentary filmmaking, has revealed its line-up for this year’s festival.
Proceedings kick off with The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer’s followup to his extraordinary The Act of Killing, which walked away with the top prize at Doc/Fest two years ago. The new film follows a family that survived the genocide in Indonesia as they confront the men who killed one of their brothers.
Joining Oppenheimer’s film on opening night is the world premiere of The Greatest Shows on Earth: A Century of Funfairs, Circuses and Carnivals, a music and archive film celebrating showpeople from Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson, which features a score by Georg Hólm and Orri Páll Dýrason of Sigur Rós.
The festival will screen a record 150 features and short docs from 35 countries over its six days. Highlights look to be Michael Nyman’s War Work: 8 Songs with Film, which will feature live music from the Michael Nyman Band; Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, the latest from The Great Hip Hop Hoax director Jeanie Finlay; Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner The Russian Woodpecker; and Brett Morgen, whose Kurt Cobain documentary Montage of Heck is currently in cinemas, will talk about his career.
There’s also a retrospective dedicated to the late, great Albert Maysles, which will include doc classics like Grey Gardens and his 2014 swan song Iris.
The festival comes to a close at the Crucible Theatre with new documentary Monty Python: The Meaning of Live, which sees the surviving Pythons talk frankly about the trials and tribulations they faced while preparing for last year’s reunion show, Monty Python Live (mostly) – One Down Five to Go. The screening will be followed by a conversation with Michael Palin and directors Roger Graef and James Rogan, hosted by comedian Josie Long. Director Graef said of the film: “It’s the Pythons as never seen before, and will never be seen again.”
Sheffield Doc/fest runs 5-10 June. Follow our coverage at theskinny.co.uk/film.