The festival is thrilled to return to the iconic Crucible Theatre this year, announcing Munya Chawawa as speaker and the Iranian filmmaker Rakshan Banietemad as the guest of honour.
Sheffield DocFest announces Paul Sng’s Tish to open this year’s festival on 14 June 2023, an intimate portrait of British documentary photographer Tish Murtha, and her daughter’s fight to preserve her legacy.
In Tish, Paul Sng celebrates the vision and profound humanism of this gifted artist. As the film questions the value placed on art and artists from working class roots, it follows Tish’s daughter Ella as she fights to preserve her mother’s legacy. No less striking than the work of its subject, Tish is a powerful tribute to a vital artist, activist and social chronicler, and a rallying call to all whose engagement with art questions who gets seen and heard, who doesn’t, and why. This is a story of contemporary Britain, of the fight for culture, as well as the life of a mother and activist.
Paul Sng
Produced by Jen Corcoran with cinematography by Hollie Galloway, the voice of Tish is played by Maxine Peake (Funny Cow). The film was made with the support of the BFI Doc Society Fund and Screen Scotland, in association with the BBC.
“We’re completely delighted that TISH has been chosen to open Sheffield DocFest, a huge honour in a fitting city to launch a film about a photographer whose images show the fun, mischief and ingenuity of working class communities. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Tish Murtha used her camera to interrogate the detrimental impact of Thatcherism and deindustrialisation. More than forty years later, her images retain an urgency and empathy that speak to the concerns faced by people struggling to pay for food and energy bills in the present day. While this film celebrates the calibre of Tish’s work, it also asks questions about the value placed on working class artists and the communities that nurture them. These are important questions, now more than ever”, says Paul Sng.
Annabel Grundy, Sheffield DocFest Managing Director, adds: “TISH shines a light on a working class artist whose work was tragically overlooked while she was alive, and whose story was rooted in the North.”
The festival is pleased to announce the internationally and critically acclaimed Iranian film director and screenwriter, Rakshan Banietemad, will be the Guest of Honour for 2023. One of Iran’s most celebrated filmmakers, she is often referred to as the “godmother of Iranian cinema”. Her wide-ranging and bold collection of works focus on poverty, criminality, divorce, polygamy, social norms, cultural taboos, women’s oppression, and cultural expectations.
“I am pleased that I have been invited to the Sheffield DocFest as a guest of honour and I will be present at this prestigious festival to introduce some of my documentary films.”
Rakshan Banietemad will attend in person and will present a Retrospective of six films, including the World Premiere of her latest short, Narratives Ad Hominem. The retrospective will be complemented by six features (including five UK premieres) from other filmmakers chosen by Banietemad and the Festival. Screenings will be accompanied by live Q&As and introductions.
“Although the Women, Life, Freedom movement was formed in Iran, its reflection spread throughout the world and will undoubtedly be influential in women’s movements in similar societies. The 2023 edition of Sheffield DocFest is smartly focusing its attention on the importance of the women’s movement by showing a number of Iranian documentary films. I am pleased that I have been invited to the Sheffield DocFest as a guest of honour and I will be present at this prestigious festival to introduce some of my documentary films.”, appoints the Iranian director.
Joining the speakers line up of public talks and events will be satirist and broadcaster Munya Chawawa, presenting a talk titled Satire in Documentary, supported by Channel 4. BAFTA nominated for his Channel 4 documentary How to Survive a Dictator, he will discuss his unique approach to integrating satire in non-fiction keeping viewers engaged and cleverly informed.
“I’m looking forward to coming back to Sheffield, my university hometown. At this year’s DocFest I’ll be sharing more of what I have been up to in the documentary space, how I have built my career so far, and how humour can be a powerful tool for truth-telling.” Munya Chawawa.
Sheffield DocFest is the UK’s leading documentary festival and one of the world’s most influential markets for documentary projects. Champion and present the breadth of documentary form – film, television, immersive and art – in the vibrant city of Sheffield each June. It offers makers and audiences a place for inspiration, debate, development, learning and challenge. Our programming represents our core values – creativity, empathy, freedom, inclusivity and internationalism.
About Paul Sng:
Paul Sng is a bi-racial British Chinese filmmaker based in Edinburgh, Scotland whose work focuses on people who challenge the status quo. His work has been broadcast on television and screened internationally, and his feature film credits include Dispossession and Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché (winner of BIFA 2021 Best Documentary, BIFA 2021 Raindance Discovery Award). He is a BAFTA Breakthrough 2022/23 artist.
About Rakshan Banietemad:
A graduate of Tehran’s University of Dramatic Arts, Rakhshan Banietemad began her documentary filmmaking career in 1979 with The Culture of Consumption. Like so much of her non-fiction over the subsequent decade, it focused on Iran’s social and economic problems. The experiences she gained from this work would intimately inform her narrative filmmaking career, which began in 1987 with the acclaimed feature Off the Limits.
