Lib (left) and Alice (right) at Aesthetica Film Festival with classmate Laura (middle)
First up we have BA (Hons) Film Studies - Sheffield Hallam University - Alice Montgomery, with her take on our Alternate Realities Exhibition, feature films and talks.
My Sextortion Diary (dir. Patricia Franquesa. Spain. 2024)
Director Patricia Franquesa’s My Sextortion Diary is a powerful and informative documentary that focuses on the filmmaker as she experiences online blackmail, which occurred after the theft of her laptop. It documents what Pati went through, through the lenses of her different digital devices, as well as her social media posts. Using the different computers and their screens to follow along her story, the audience is held in suspence as we wish the best for Pati. Before the screening began, Pati admitted that she wanted everyone to be aware of what to do should this happen to you.
Her documentary explores each important moment that happened within the months in which the hacker was holding her personal information. They use different screens and cameras for the viewer to watch these events from a variety of lenses. Every step of her journey was spliced together with different life events, such as spending time with her family, going on her day-to-day life and even attending her own film premiere. As the film reaches its end, it focuses more and more on how Pati is desperate to find out who is blackmailing her. While the blackmailer has not yet been found, she did take the power out of their hands by making a beautiful statement to her online followers.
BBC Interview: Simon Reeve in Conversation
The BBC interview hosted by the head of Specialist Factual Commissioning at the BBC – Jack Bootle – explored the way in which Reeves made his way from investigative journalism and onto the screen. The two men led a comedic, yet informative view of the author's time on his journeys around the world starting from his childhood. The conversation flowed easily, and both made it an entertaining watch, exploring how his life has panned out after his rocky childhood at home in west London. The talk ended with the wonderful reveal that his latest series Wilderness has more planned retreats and he is going to be exploring the different Scandinavian countries.
Throughout, Reeves talked about how his time as a child wasn’t spent exploring different countries and locations. In fact, he discusses how he really only went to one seaside village with his family – which is quite the contrast to what he is doing now. Reeves was continuously comedic when reminiscing about the times when he was in front of the camera. Most notably, when talking about the occasion when travelling around South Africa in which he walked straight into a drug den, or when they had to rush out of Butane to escape the military. While these are most certainly dangerous situations, Reeves looked back on the memory in a comedic manner, even stating that he was happy to have done so as it allowed him and his team to show the UK what it is like in different cultures who want their stories told.
Alternate Realities Exhibition
This exhibit was an interesting and whimsical experience that allowed me to fully immerse myself within the documentaries. The exhibit enabled me to feel a much more intense and physical response to art than I had ever felt before. Each of the different tales the art pieces focused on were showing the wide-ranging experiences others go through on the planet. ‘Our Ark’ was one of the documentaries that immersed the viewer fully as the headphones blocked out all outer sound and we were focussed only on the screen. Being so enveloped by the screen and sounds allowed the information which was being told to fully sink in. Another experience was ‘The Finger Rub Rug’ by Laura A Dima, which mimicked the feeling of human touch.
‘Emperor’ the virtual reality experience by Marion Burger and Ilan J. Cohen, explored the reality behind the pain which they are unable to express. The experience put the viewer in the mind of a father who is suffering with aphasia after having a stroke. Each of the different scenes placed the viewer into the unfortunate and uncomfortable position in which the father was forced into. We were left to navigate with only our actions and unable to voice our issues. While every memory was sewed with sadness, the laughter filled ending in which the daughter recounts him repeatedly shouting ‘emperor’ lifted the spirits and left me with a wider range of knowledge than I had before.
HAIYU – Rebel Singer Mariem Hassan and the Struggle for a Free Western Sahara (dir. Alex Veitch, Brahim B. Ali, Mohamedsalem Uered, Anna Klara Åhrén. Sweden, Western Sahara. 2024)
This is a documentary that follows the life of the political singer Mariem Hassan and the journey that her country went through to reach political freedom. The civil unrest that Western Sahara went through is filtered between snippets of the rebel singers’ powerful vocals and lyrics about how the people will not rest until they have true political freedom. The singer herself was moved out of her own country due to the military and active war happening during her childhood. Each of the songs the directors included in the documentary have powerful vocals and lyrics which express the groups distain towards the lack of freedom people had during the distressing time.
Here’s Lib Silke, BA (Hons) Film Studies student, with her reviews of films in our Youth Jury Selection and Shorts Programme.
The Ride Ahead (dir. Dan Habib, Samuel Habib. United States. 2024)
The Ride Ahead is a very funny and honest exploration of Samuel Habib as both filmmaker and subject, and follows his journey of becoming an adult while disabled. This worked as a fantastic introduction to DocFest that skillfully balanced the more frustrating and upsetting parts of Habib’s experience with plenty of pride and joy in his disability.
The film is narrated by Habib, and along with him being a charismatic lead, his power over the storytelling works to demonstrate the self-advocacy the film fights for, highlighting the importance of disabled people telling their own stories. The documentary makes frequent jabs at how able-bodied filmmakers love leaning into the perceived tragedy of disabled lives to create pity, and Habib refuses to entertain this expectation, instead pushing for understanding. The approachability of Habib’s sense of humour succeeds in this pursuit, and he very quickly endeared himself to the DocFest premiere audience.
The film shares Habib’s journey to both educate the able-bodied and to let other disabled people on the cusp of adulthood know that they aren’t alone, and that a happy, successful adult life is very possible for them. It’s a beautiful sentiment that someone without Habib’s lived experience could never convey.
Life on the Edge (dir. Johnny Langenheim, Sebastian Feehan. Greenland, United Kingdom. 2024)
Life on the Edge follows Nuka, a man aiming to help struggling people heal from the ignored intergenerational trauma plaguing Greenland that almost killed him. The film begins by telling us that everyone in Greenland has lost someone to suicide, and remains this brutally honest throughout. The cinematography shows these settlements Nuka visits as beautiful and idyllic, disguising the tragedy that haunts them and communicating the open secret that Greenland lives with. Nuka’s personal story is the throughline that kept me invested, and watching him be so dedicated to helping other people made me really root for him to find his peace by the end.
The film’s focus on forgiveness was beautifully done. It’s a difficult theme to approach, as forgiveness is a deeply personal choice, and the film was open about the horrible things Nuka and his father had done, yet I felt joy with them when their lives took happier turns. Near the end of the film, there is a wedding that seeps with forgiveness, and Nuka’s mother gives a speech on the importance of love. Through the film, we watch love save Nuka’s life, his father’s life, and the many other lives this film and Nuka touch.
Shorts: More Souls Than One
The ‘More Souls Than One’ strand of short films is thought provoking and conversation starting, presenting four complex situations that beg discussion.
Blue (dir. Ana Vîjdea. Romania, Belgium, Portugal, Hungary. 2024)
‘Blue’ intimately follows a family where a mother’s fear is what dictates their rules and haunts their relationships. The film digs closely into the family’s lives, particularly shocking me in showing some of the daughter’s private messages, making it feel almost fictional in its storytelling. Everything the mother does is out of love, but her choices breed resentment that can be felt through the screen. There is a generational gap that isn’t crossed in this film, and the final shots of the separated family left me feeling mournful.
Nocturn for a Forest (dir. Catarina Vasconcelos. Portugal. 2023)
Nocturn for a Forest is a fun concept executed stunningly. We follow a psychedelic meeting of plants in a forest inhabited by the spirits of fifteenth century women that were excluded from the Church and forced behind a wall. They convene to decide what to do with a painting of the Virgin Mary with her chest exposed that had been coveted by the monks on the other side of the wall. The film is made thrilling by vibrant lighting and dynamic sound design that greatly elevate looking at leaves and reading subtitles. The short modernises its focus with twenty-first century feminist concerns, drawing parallels between powerful men that refuse to change.
Eternal Father (dir. Ömer Sami. UK. 2023)
‘Eternal Father’ was the most difficult watch of the four shorts, and consequently my favourite. Starting the film on his fifty-ninth birthday, the polarising lead Nasar decides he wants to be cryogenically frozen when he dies. What makes the subject matter so challenging is that by obsessing over these plans, Nasar’s young children begin contemplating their own mortality, all of them eager to dive into this experimental science with their father. Additionally, Nasar’s younger wife is torn, reluctant to even think about the choice that her family obsesses over. The short is nicely shot, but the most striking images come at the very end, where we’re shown haunting predictions of what the family will look like, dead and floating in their nitrogen tombs.
Wind of Gold (dir. André Hayato Saito. Brazil. 2024)
‘Wind of Gold’ is the simplest and hardest hitting of the shorts, and it works perfectly as a finale. The film takes us through days in the life of an elderly woman and her daughter taking care of her. This film shows that the experience is difficult, but that it can be serene at the same time. I particularly appreciated a scene of the daughter breaking down crying, because grieving for the living and the guilt that comes with it feels underdiscussed. Becoming your caretaker’s caretaker is something waiting for almost everyone, and seeing someone overwhelmed by that fear and grief is a great catharsis in an otherwise peaceful film.
BBC Interview: Simon Reeve in Conversation
Simon Reeve’s interview at the Crucible theatre was an entertaining journey through his life and career. I had never heard of Reeve before this talk, but he proved himself an approachable figure, and I appreciated the openness with which he discussed his childhood. He presented his life story as a miraculous progression from a troubled child, to a suicidal teen, to post boy at the Sunday Times, to an underqualified young investigative reporter. Then, after 9/11, his expert knowledge on al-Qaeda launched him into TV fame, and he began creating dangerous travel documentaries for the BBC.
Something I appreciated in the interview is the way Reeve lamented the current lack of support for young people who don’t want to pursue higher education, preventing others from following a career trajectory and experiencing a successful turnaround like his. It’s clear he has a passion for supporting the autonomy of young people and celebrating those who break the traditional mould.