Sheffield Doc/Fest Scheduled to Start Shuffling June 8th

Prior to the docu-world staking out Maryland for the upcoming edition of the Silverdocs, we now begin to look towards Europe for the next series of major doc-related film fests. Sheffield Doc/Fest, which runs from Wednesday June 8th to Sunday June 12th has a solid collection of best docs films so far in 2011, with much of the lineup being similar to this year’s Hot Docs, even leading off on opening night with Morgan Spurlock’s POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold as the Canadian fest did earlier this year.

Over the course of the fest’s five days I’ll be covering a couple films from each of the major award categories. I’ll be looking at a number of films that are playing in competition for the Special Jury Prize including Calvet, a doc making its world premier that looks at the the troubled life of artist Jean Marc Calvet, as well as first time director Alma Har’el’s hybrid doc Bombay Beach, which took home the Best Doc prize last month at the Tribeca Film Fest for its look at rural California (see pic above). Also in competition for the top prize is a doc that made its premier on HBO earlier this year called Gun Fight, which takes a look at gun politics in the US. Hell and Back Again, a look into the war in Afghanistan a la Restrepo, made the rounds in this year’s earlier fests, and is also participating in the main competition.

Films I’ll be covering that are in competition for the Innovation Prize this year include Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, a film that looks into the origins of the mysterious street laden Toynbee tiles, as well as The Nine Muses, which uses Homer’s Odyssey as a framework to tell the story of Britain’s post war mass migration. Like a few other doc fests, Sheffield has their own category devoted to docs that focus in on environmental issues. Oscilloscope’s newest doc, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, is in competition for the Green Award this year, and peaks into the history of the ELF as well as the life of Daniel McGowan, a former member of the eco-activist group. Also in the running for the Green Award is You’ve Been Trumped, which investigates Donald Trump’s plan to build the world’s largest golf course on one of Britain’s last patches of wilderness.