News

Film and VR entries are now open for the 32nd Edition of Sheffield DocFest, which will take place from Wednesday 18 June - Monday 23 June 2025. 

We are delighted to announce the cohort for our inaugural Queer Realities Director’s Lab! Ten UK-based documentary directors have been selected to take part in this new and in-depth development programme.

Following on from a successful 31st edition, we're delighted to announce our 2025 festival dates which will run from 18-23 June 2025. Industry Passes are now on sale at the discounted Lightning rate until 16 October 2024.

Sheffield DocFest’s Queer Realities Director’s Lab is a development programme open to directors who are currently developing a queer documentary project.

We invited two Sheffield Hallam University students to explore the Sheffield DocFest 2024 programme.

Here’s Lib Silke, a BA Film Studies student, with her take on films in our Youth Jury Selection and Shorts Programme.

​​We invited two Sheffield Hallam University students to explore the Sheffield DocFest 2024 programme.
Here’s Alice Montgomery, a BA Film Studies student, with her thoughts on everything from talks with big names to our Alternate Realities Exhibition.

We are thrilled to announce that the 2024 Audience Award is presented to Strike: An Uncivil War directed by Daniel Gordon (UK), produced by Nick Taussig and Fjolla Iberhysaj.

We are delighted to announce this year’s winners presented during the awards ceremony at Sheffield’s Crucible Playhouse this evening.

We are excited to announce our Jury Members for this years’ International Competition, International First Feature Competition, International Short Film Competition, the Tim Hetherington Award, the International Alternate Realities Competition, alongside our previously announced members of the Youth Jury. Winners will be revealed during the Festival’s Awards Ceremony at Crucible Playhouse on 16 June. Join us at our 31th edition of the festival in Sheffield, 12-11 June 2024.

Returning for the third year running, we are delighted to present our Filmmaker Challenge 2024. Six early-career UK filmmakers have been selected to undertake the challenge of making a film on the fly, with a micro budget and equipment support, as well as mentoring from Oscar and BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Julie Cohen (RBG, Every Body, My Name is Pauli Murray).

We are pleased to reveal our full Industry Programme for the 31st edition of Sheffield DocFest, taking place in Sheffield, 12-17 June 2024, which completes our full festival line up. Come and explore the programme.

We are thrilled to announce the cohort for this year’s edition of Amplify: Production Talent. Supported by BBC and Channel 4, the initiative offers early-career production professionals the opportunity to connect with UK production company executives in the documentary TV sector; experience an international marketplace; widen their network and learn more about the industry.

We are proud to announce the 2024 cohort of Alternate Realities Talent Artists, who have been selected to take part in this year’s edition of the Alternate Realities Talent Initiative, taking place on Saturday 15 June.

We are proud to reveal our full Film programme, Alternate Realities exhibitions, and public Talks for the 30th edition of Sheffield DocFest.

DocFest firmly believes in the transformative power of documentaries to spark curiosity, engage audiences, and foster meaningful discussions and with this year’s theme ‘Reflections on Reality’ the festival welcomes audiences and industry guests to engage in conversation - in Sheffield, 12-17 June 2024. 

Come and explore the programme.

Sheffield DocFest announces Reflections on Realities as its 2024 theme and a special programme of films and conversations titled ‘Days of Reflection’ on the themes of Co-Resistance, Freedom of the Press, Ancestral Lands and Archiving the Present.

A post from our Festival Audio Partner, Warner Chappell Production Music

We are thrilled to announce our 2024 Opening Night Film, Guest of Honor and one of our headline talks ahead of our full Programme Launch on Wednesday 8 May.

We are thrilled to announce the slate for the 2024 MeetMarket taking place Thursday 13 June and Friday 14 June, as part of a broader marketplace programme of talent development, pitches, roundtables and conferences designed to connect new projects with industry partners that runs across the festival.

We are pleased to announce our collaboration with the International Documentary Association (IDA) for the Alternate Realities Exhibition and Summit during our 31st edition of Sheffield DocFest taking place 12 - 17 June 2024.

Returning for 2024, we will select and support six filmmakers to make a short documentary in and around Sheffield during the festival.