3rd Tim Hetherington Award
Sheffield Documentary Festival
Sheffield International Documentary Festival is an annual digital media festival held in Sheffield, England. Since beginning in 1994, SIDF has grown to become the UK’s biggest festival of its kind and the third biggest documentary festival in the world. The documentary festival will run from 5th – 10th June 2015 and we hope that many of you will be able to attend to view the enormous range of films being presented.
For the 3rd year The Tim Hetherington Trust has had the privilege of working with the sponsors of the prestigious SIDF’s Tim Hetherington Award: SIDF and Dogwoof, who generously provide the prize money. The aim with the award is to support a project that demonstrates vision, conviction and passion, following Tim’s ethos as a guideline to help us choose the most appropriate winner.
This year we have been lucky enough to view a number of documentaries, each one promising a new angle on a subject matter that deals with humanitarian issues using a range storytelling techniques.
SIDF and Dogwoof’s four final nominations are:
TELL SPRING NOT TO COME THIS YEAR
A film by Saeed Taji Farouky and Michael McEvoy. The film explores one of the units of the Afghan National Army over the course of their first year of deployment in Helmand without NATO support. It is an intimate film about the human side of combat, told from a largely unheard and often misrepresented perspective that explores the deep personal motivations, desires and struggles of a band of fighting men on the frontline. Without a NATO soldier in sight, and no narrative but their own, this is the war in Afghanistan, through the eyes of the Afghans who live it. A document relevant and complex, this film has been gaining attention in the past few months by critics such as the Hollywood Reporter who suggests the film-makers have, ‘gone where few directors dare to venture.’
A documentary by film-maker Matthew Heineman. The film is a harrowing look at the journeys of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared enemy – the murderous Mexican drug cartels. The documentary is a chilling meditation on the breakdown of order and the blurry line between good and evil. A dangerous endeavour Heineman has been praised for his sheer bravery, as noted by Indiewire, ; “Heineman, in placing himself in such danger, has managed to create a remarkable and distinctive film that takes on a difficult issue that cannot be so conveniently remedied or ignored.”
This documentary, by film-makers Oleksandr Techynskyi, Aleksey Solodunov and Dmitry Stoykov is about the revolution that changed Ukraine during the winter of 2013 – 2014. Crowds of people refuse the old power structures and fight with violence in Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the central square of Kiev, Ukraine. The film has already had success, winning the DOK Leipzig MDR Film Award.
The last nomination for SIDF’s Tim Hetherington Award is a documentary by E. Chai Vasarhelyi. A tale which opens up to the fraught relationship in Senegal between the civilians and President Abdoulaye Wade, who decided to amend the nations constitution to seek a third time in office. The country’s Constitutional Council allowed it to happen, which enraged the opposition and various pro-democracy groups, sparking many protests around the 2012 election. The film will have its international premiere at SIDF.
Each film is dealing with humanitarian issues with different ambitions. A tough decision, never the less, we look forward to announcing the winner of ‘The Tim Hetherington Award’ at the Sheffield Documentary Festival.
