Sheffield Film Festival at Showroom Cinema
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
The best of Sheffield’s thriving film community come together for a brand new film festival launching this August at Showroom Cinema. Sheffield Film Festival is a new, annual celebration of the city’s rich film heritage that brings together established big players such as Warp Films, Sheffield DocFest and the city’s universities, with grassroots organisers and film programmers including Celluloid Screams, Cinema Palestino, Film Girls Galore and many more.
Sheffield Film Festival’s inaugural edition focuses on homegrown talent, showcasing and celebrating the continuing contributions of Sheffield-based filmmakers, producers, programmers, academics and cinephiles.
The festival is now in full swing, but there’s plenty still to come this month, including a huge, centrepiece retrospective of films from Sheffield based production company Warp Films featuring some of their most iconic works, including Shane Meadows’ This is England, Richard Ayoade’s Submarine and Chris Morris’ Four Lions.
Local institution Sheffield DocFest marks 30 years in the game with a one-off screening of their 2014 opening film (about another local institution), Pulp A Film About Life, Death, and Supermarkets (Tue 27 Aug). While SHU Film Studies at Showroom Cinema celebrates 25 years by recreating its first ever event, a showing of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much (Tue 13 Aug), introduced by Dr Sheldon Hall, who delivered the original 1998 lecture.
Other local partners include Celluloid Screams who present an all-day Mystery 35mm Horror Marathon (Sat 3 Aug), accompanied by vintage adverts, trailers and other surprises; Cinema Palestino mark 15 years of events at Showroom with Gaza Surf Club (Sun 18 Aug); while a Family Time strand brings together a “staycation” series of family-friendly titles inspired by locations within travelling distance of Sheffield.
Things come to a close on with the big screen return of Ken Loach’s 1981 Sheffield-set drama Looks and Smiles (30 Aug – 1 Sep). Based on Barry Hines’ (Kes, Threads) acclaimed novel, the film offers a glimpse of Sheffield’s past, as it follows a teenager looking for work in the recession-hit city. It’s a fitting opportunity for retrospection, coming at the end of brand new event bursting with the promise of talent and collaboration — it’s exciting to have a new film festival on the block.
