A little Sheffield Doc/Fest at BFI Southbank

For those of you who are not as lucky as we are and have to give this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest a miss, there’s some good news for you. The BFI Southbank is this year embarking on a new form of partnership with Sheffield Doc/Fest in which they co-present a selection of documentary screenings concurrent with the festival in Sheffield. This is your chance to see some great docs before anyone else does, enjoy it!

Londoners have a chance to see four fantastic documentaries this week at the BFI Southbank – ahead of general release and only days after their initial screening at this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest. Thanks to a partnership between the two great institutions these films will be showing at the British Film Institute:

Friday 15 June:
From the Sea to the Land Beyond

Sonic Cinema live film/music event From the Sea to the Land brings together the newly finished documentary by award-winning filmmaker Penny Woolcock’s about the British coastline, with an equally new live musical score composed and performed by British Sea Power.

Saturday 16 June:
Searching for Sugar Man (Highly recommended)

This stunning and touching new documentary by director Malik Benjelloul tells the story of Rodriguez, a singer who was discovered in a Detroit bar in the late 60s and recorded an album which bombed and disappeared into obscurity. However, over the years it became a phenomenon during the years of apartheid in South Africa, making Rodriguez more famous in the country than Elvis. But who the man is that sang the famous protest songs no South African actually knows.

Sunday 17 June:
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Director Alison Clayman has managed to create an engrossing portrait of China’s most prominent dissident artist and create a film which celebrates his work and brilliant mind while putting forward a case for him as one of the most significant thinkers of our time.

Monday 18 June:
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present

Whether you like performance art or not, this film will do something with you. When performance artist Abramović got to present a retrospective of her work at the MOMA in New York she knew it was her last chance to be taken serious and move away from the stamp ‘experimental’. But, in order to reach her goal she had to push herself even further this time. Director Matthew Akers was present to film the artist and the event that would change the art history books forever.