The latest instalment of Sheffield’s internationally renowned documentary film festival, DocFest, came to a close yesterday after hosting screenings in cinemas and venues across the city since 12th June. Here are some of our highlights from this year’s festival…
Black Snow
First up, we took in the winner of the Tim Hetherington Award, which celebrates films committed to humanitarian and social concerns throughout the world. Black Snow delivers this in spades and was probably the surprise package of the festival for me.
Knowing very little going in, the documentary plunged us into the murky story of a Siberian mother-of-three’s attempts to uncover a natural disaster being perpetrated by the oil companies and Russian administration in her hometown.
Becoming a citizen journalist, the formidable Natalia Zubkova documents, via her YouTube channel, the environmental cost of the numerous open mines located in her remote region.
When fires are discovered underneath an abandoned mine (the ground is literally smoking just yards away from people’s homes), her work comes to the attention of the Russian authorities, who attempt to cover up the damage caused by big business by blaming the residents and eventually persecuting Natalia to the point that she is forced to flee the country with her youngest daughter.
The levels of corruption and insidious tactics the authorities are shown to be involved in range from the ridiculous—painting the snow white to disguise the fact it’s actually black with dust and pollution—to the scandalous—falsifying environmental reports, publicly accusing residents of dumping trash causing the fires, and the FSB’s constant surveillance and harassment of Natalia.
Filmmaker Alina Simone, who herself faces persistent police surveillance during her time in Russia, uses Natalia’s story to outline the environmental and social concerns of a Russia beset by an ever-encroaching totalitarian regime that is enthralled to big industry.
Union
If you needed any more reasons not to shop at Amazon, this film delivers a cardboard box-load more. In this film by Brett Story and Stephen Maing, we follow long-suffering Amazon employees’ often fruitless attempts to organize and, more importantly, unionise.
Led by former employee Chris Smalls, who quit Amazon due to unsafe working conditions, a dedicated group of employees and activists attempt to set up the first Amazon Labor Union, and the film documents the difficult conversations, frustrating rules, and underhanded, union-busting tactics used by Amazon throughout the process.
Through footage on the picket lines, covert filming of meetings inside Amazon’s warehouse JFK8 on Staten Island, and unflinching access to ALU meetings, the film explores the tension, infighting, and the lengths Amazon will go to in order to stop employees organizing for fairer pay and conditions.
Klitschko: More than a Fight
For this year’s opening night film, we were treated to the world premiere of Klitschko: More than a Fight at Sheffield City Hall. Directed by Oscar winner Kevin MacDonald, the film follows former boxing heavyweight champion and current Mayor of Kyiv, Vitaly Klitschko, alongside his brother and also former heavyweight boxing champ, Wladimir.
As war breaks out in Ukraine, Vitaly is already the longest-serving mayor of the Ukrainian capital after coming to power following the 2014 Maidan revolution on a pro-European, anti-corruption ticket.
The film shows his dedication to his people and passionate defence of his homeland as he attempts to hold the morale of the capital together against constant Russian aggression.
His brother, meanwhile, uses his celebrity to gain military support and arms for the country, attempting to keep the conflict in the minds of other European countries.
With unprecedented access to Vitaly and the mayor’s office, the film is half an exploration of the brothers’ positions in the war, and half, through archive footage, an exploration of their Soviet upbringing, and subsequent career and domination of the boxing world, which, in part, has led to their positions in the current war in Ukraine.
There are occasional moments of real vulnerability not necessarily associated with the giant men, particularly scenes at home with Vitaly, where he wonders whether he can go on fighting but always manages to find the resolve.
After the screening, Kevin tells the audience how it had taken a long time to get these media-trained, former athletes and politicians to let their guard down, but in those moments when you feel they aren’t knowingly winking at the camera, it’s compelling viewing.
Teaches of Peaches
Directed by Philipp Fussenegger and Judy Landkammer, Teaches of Peaches is an intimate portrayal of the iconic electroclash artist Peaches and showcases the 20th-anniversary tour of her breakthrough album.
Interwoven with archive footage, the documentary is an often-funny journey into the artist’s career and backstory, highlighting her unflinching feminism and uncompromising attitudes towards sex and identity, alongside electric performances that prove that at a sprightly 55 years of age, Peaches’ raucous stage shows show no sign of slowing down or being any less provocative.
When I grow up, I wanna be Peaches!
DEVO
More than just another rockumentary, this film about the US synth-pop band DEVO shows how they were more than just a band.
Founded out of Kent State University, DEVO was originally conceived as an art project with a definite manifesto around the idea of the de-evolution of society, and the film charts their attempts to continue spreading this message, against the juxtaposition of success and the trappings of capitalism.
DEVO’s boundary-pushing music and music videos, made long before MTV was even thought of, bring into focus how forward-thinking the band were as artists. There’s a very big difference between being a joke band, as they were sometimes described in the mainstream press, and having the self-awareness and sense of humour to satirize what you see going on around you.
When tackling these themes, the film succeeds, but for me, it could have explored the band members’ individual stories a little more, and I don’t think the anti-capitalist ideals they hold so staunchly are fully squared against all the money they were making.
Perhaps the biggest shock was that lead singer and founder member, Mark Mothersbaugh, wrote the theme to The Rugrats cartoon!
Of Caravan and the Dogs
We head back to Russia for this film; this time to explore the press censorship strangling Russia’s democracy in the run-up to and during the war in Ukraine (only they’re not actually allowed to call it a war!).
This erosion of freedoms is seen through the unparalleled access of filmmakers, Askold Kurov and a contributor referred to only as Anonymous 1, who get a glimpse into the independent newsrooms of Russia’s media resistance to Putin, including Radio Ekho Moskvy, Dozhd TV (TV Rain), and the newspaper Novaya Gazeta – whose editor in chief, Dmitry Muratov, had just won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Set against the backdrop of the liquidation of Memorial, the Russian human rights group that researched and revealed the crimes of Stalin’s regime, each newsroom is systematically labeled a foreign agent and eventually closes.
As we watch the rules around what can be printed or broadcast become ever stricter, the newsrooms’ attempts to circumvent the rules eventually threaten not just their editorial integrity but their liberty and lives as well, forcing many into exile.
It’s a pretty depressing dissemination of the state of democracy and the authority’s relationship and contempt for the fourth estate in Russia.
The Accidental President
More Russia-adjacent filmmaking in this one; that seems to have been the major theme of this year’s festival for me (I also watched Democracy Noir on the player, which is another doc well worth checking out if you don’t know the story of Hungarian president Viktor Orban!)
The Accidental President, however, finds us in Belarus under the shadow of Europe’s last unshackled dictatorship, Aleksandr Lukashenko, AKA The Cockroach, and you guessed it, one of Putin’s mates.
Lukashenko has been in power for over two decades, largely thanks to rigged elections, but in 2020, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya puts her name on the ballot to stand against him, after her husband, a journalist who planned to stand himself, is arrested and made a political prisoner.
Sviatlana takes her husband’s place and wins! But of course, it’s not that straightforward, as Lukashenko simply claims he has won the election with a staggering 80 percent of the vote.
Cue mass protests across the country, brutal battles with the military and the police on the streets leading to thousands of arrests, and Sviatlana’s enforced exile to neighboring Lithuania.
It’s from her base in Lithuania, where the filmmakers, Mike Lerner and Martin Herring, capture Sviatlana and her team’s campaign to wrestle power from an increasingly authoritarian and entrenched Lukashenko, as she visits The White House and other European countries to gather support and legitimacy for her presidency.
Four years later, Sviatlana is still in exile, The Cockroach clings to power and has now made the country an active collaborator with Putin in the war on Ukraine.
This is a wonderfully insightful film that shows the determination and tenacity of a leader and a people who have had enough. Make no mistake, there is no accident about Sviatlana being the true president of Belarus.
