NEWS

Sheffield DocFest unveils 2024 winners

BY MONA TABBARA 17 JUNE 2024

AT THE DOOR OF THE HOUSE WHO WILL COME KNOCKING

At The Door Of The House Who Will Come Knocking, The Boy And The Suit Of Lights and No Other Land were the main winners at this year’s Sheffield DocFest.

The festival, which ran from June 12-17, saw public attendance rise by more than 20% compared to 2023.

UPDATE: Strike: An Uncivil War has been unveiled as winner of the audience award. The documentary about a violent confrontation during the UK’s miners’ strike is directed by Daniel Gordon and produced by Embankment Films. Tull Stories will release the film in the UK and Ireland on June 21. 

Maja Novaković’s At The Door Of The House Who Will Come Knocking won the grand jury award for the international competition. The film is a Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina co-production that follows an elderly man living in isolation, recording the routines of his daily life, in Bosnia. A special mention in this category went to South African documentary Mother City, from directors Miki Redelinghuys and Pearlie Joubert.

Inma de Reyes’s UK film The Boy And The Suit Of Lights won the international first feature competition grand jury award. The film follows a young boy with dreams of being a bullfighter in Spain. Another UK film, Duncan Cowles’ film Silent Men, received a special mention.

No Other Land has added Sheffield’s Tim Hetherington Award to its roster of wins, after taking home the documentary award and Panorama audience award at this year’s Berlinale.

The doc is directed by the Palestinian-Israeli team of Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal, and is a Palestine-Norway co-production. It tells the story of a Palestinian activist fight against the destruction of his community. Dogwoof will release the film in UK-Ireland later this year. 

The Tim Hetherington Award recognises the work of a film and filmmaker that best reflects the legacy of UK photojournalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington.

Australian work Perinatal Dreaming. Understanding Country won the international virtual reality competition, while Haiyu - Rebel Singer Mariem Hassan And The Struggle For A Free Western Sahara took home the youth jury prize.

The Whickers Pitch Film and TV and Funding Award main winner was Indian doc Camels Of The Sea, directed by Vikram Singh and winning £100,000, while the development prize of £20,000 went to Chinese film Replica, directed by Chouwa Liang.

The inaugural Al Jazeera Documentary Channel Co-production award for Sheffield DocFest MeetMarket, with a prize of $15,000, was awarded to Bea Wangondu and Andrew H. Brown’s Kikuyu Land. The film unfurls as a Nairobi journalist is investigating a civil petition against the British Crown and Kenya’s tea industry, and stumbles upon her own family’s concealed secrets.