From political investigative journalism to meditative personal stories, and interactive web films to large-scale cinematic visions, Doc/Fest has it all by the bucket load, and we had a rather pleasant time paddling through as much as we could fit in.
Festival favourite was probably Benda Bilili, a music doc with an irresistible Congolese Rumba soundtrack, great characters, more triumph-over-adversity than you can shake a stick at, and not a patronising or navel-gazing scene in sight. As well as being talented soul musicians, the members of Team Benda Bilili are disabled (mostly due to childhood polio) and living for the most part on the harsh streets of Kinshasa. Life is brutal, recording stops because the challenges of food and shelter are more immediate, but over five years the filming continues and a brilliant first album is created.
Our Top-of-the-Pops also includes Laura Fairrie's The Battle For Barking, an astonishingly balanced look at the 8 months leading up to the May 6th elections in the Dagenham and Barking constituency, where Labour's Margaret Hodge fought an unexpectedly tough campaign against Nick Griffin and the BNP. The filmmaker's access to both sides and her tenacious commitment to following the campaign trail makes for more insight into both parties at local level than we've ever seen before. Wonderful, measured and very human, it was the deserved winner of the Sheffield Youth Jury Award.
Wholly different but equally unforgettable was Marwencol - the name of the model town in Mark Hogancamp's back yard populated with personalised barbie dolls and GI Joes. This intricate and entirely absorbing miniature world was Mark's response to a traumatic attack that left him in a coma and robbed him of his memory of life before the attack, of his physical capabilities and of his confidence in himself and in the world. By creating and photographing scenes in Marwencol, Mark can make tentative explorations of the world and of his own emotional landscape. In life he has been brutally reminded of his mortality and limitations, but in Marwencol he is a creator as well as a participant. It is the most original and artistic self therapy you can imagine. We left the film full of wonder and extremely moved.
So many other excellent films (and many that we didn't manage to get to), so just a quick shout out for Donor Unknown (Jerry Rothwell), the utterly brilliant and important On the Streets (Penny Woolcock) and the beautiful and troubling short film Diary (Tim Hetherington).
AND LEST WE FORGET... Branchage patron and hero Kim Longinotto was there with her new film Pink Saris, which we are delighted to say won the festival's prestigious Special Jury Prize.
While we're on the subject of Branchage loves... also screening was Shooting Blind, the short film directed by Andrew Whitehouse, a Jersey resident and dedicated Branchage volunteer. Huge congratulations for an excellent film which has been duly noted as so by the very excellent Doc/Fest.
Stunning weekend, heart Doc/Fest.
x
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