Sheffield Doc/Fest is racing through documentaries this week in a bid to get all 150 short, medium and feature length documentary films from around the world shown to audiences. Here are our highlights of day 3&4, conveniently bundled together for your ease.
THE CASE AGAINST 8
In November 2008, the night Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, another vote was going on. A vote to ban same sex marriages was passed by the people of California and those who had believed themselves legally married were now facing a marriage that was null and void. The LGBT community made the decision to fight this and found two couples to act as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the decision.
The intense public gaze and enormous pressure being part of this landmark case are never far from the couples’ minds yet they are so determined that this basic human right be given to them and millions of others that they never waiver in their choice to be a part of this. The American legal system is a complex one and stories of appeal upon appeal, ninth circuits and supreme courts are in danger of disrupting the fluidity of the story but the absolute focus on Sandy, Kris, Jeff & Paul rather than technicalities allows the audience to remind fully engaged. Directors Ryan White and Ben Cotner have pieced together a hugely personal, emotional documentary about the fight for marriage equality.
REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG
The life of American writer Susan Sontag is chronicled in REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG – the latest work from award-winning director Nancy D. Kates. Sontag was a 1960’s powerhouse; a filmmaker, novelist, social critic and political and cultural activist who went against the grain of society and embraced the new-wave. She wrote and engaged in debate about everything from art and photography to the Vietnam War.
Sontag had her share of detractors and Kates assembles a variety of critics, colleagues and personal friends to talk candidly on Sontag’s life. No doubt a fascinating subject, Kates delivers a documentary full of the life, love and passion that Sontag shared with so many.
BEYOND CLUELESS
In a project fully funded by Kickstarter, director Charlie Lyne takes on the the mountainous task of decoding the teen movie psyche in the sprawling feature BEYOND CLUELESS. From fitting in and acting out to toe-ing the line and moving on Lyne delves into a world of the plastics, the cheerleaders, the jocks and the outsiders to uncover common themes in the teen movie genre.
Lyne looks at a huge range of teen films from romcoms like SHE’S ALL THAT, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR and 13 GOING ON 30 to horrors flicks IDLE HANDS, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER & THE FACULTY. Whatever your teen movie tastes you will have fun spotting the movies you grew up with, and narration by teen movie star Fairuza Balk adds to the nostalgic sense of the film.
The winding argument of the film, that 5 stages of high-school can be seen in the breakdown of these movies and that ultimately a teen must mould into what is needed to survive high school is perhaps a stretch of the material but there’s little doubt as to how much pleasure there is to be gained from spotting now fully-fledged Hollywood stars in their early careers. Lyne’s breakdown of teen favourites is a must-see for anyone who grew up immersed in these movies; a second look at your favourite may surprise you.
THN interviewed director Charlie Lyne directly after the film’s screening with a live soundtrack from pop duo Summer Camp so check back to THN for that and more from the 5th and final day of Sheffield Doc/Fest.
