The Amazon, Ukraine, and Russian state oppression
A decade of unforgettable films from Sheffield DocFest (Part 3)
After a two-year interruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, returning to Sheffield for the city’s international documentary festival in 2022 felt like a celebration. DocFest was back, and with it an extraordinary programme of documentaries examining war, authoritarianism, and environmental destruction.
As I mentioned in the earlier posts in this series, the nature of my work steers my choices towards documentaries about human rights, frontline journalism, conflict, and state corruption - but for each year I’ll also recommend a film or two that’s slightly different.
This latest instalment in my retrospective of a decade at DocFest focuses on the stand-out films from 2022 and 2023.
2022: The Amazon, Wikileaks & Russian injustice
The Territory (Alex Pritz) is a beautifully shot documentary about the competing interests in the future of the Amazon rainforest - including the indigenous people for whom the forest is ancestral land, and the farmers and settlers trying to make a living.
The drama is gripping. But what makes this film special is that the filmmakers give a voice to all the disparate groups seeking to sustain themselves from the forest’s resources.
I met the film’s director, Alex Pritz, in 2015 on an unforgettable battlefield medical training course in Nairobi run by Reporters Instructed in the Saving of Colleagues (RISC) - an organisation that sadly was forced to close in 2025.
Shortly after we met, Alex stepped in at the eleventh hour to contribute his brilliant camera work to a film shoot in a Kenyan refugee camp for Lions & Tigers, the documentary I’m making about South Sudan’s national wheelchair basketball team.
Such is Alex’s skill, commitment and creative spark that it was no surprise to me that a few years later I was watching his award-winning documentary.
Frontline Journalism, Doping in Russian Sports, Nuclear Arms
Read the first post in the series
The New Greatness Case (Anna Shishova) is the gruesome story of a Russian teenager sentenced to prison after being entrapped, groomed and radicalised by the state security service.
The film lifts the veil on how citizens of Russia are silenced, oppressed, and unlawfully imprisoned by their own government.
Ithaka – A Fight to Free Julian Assange (Ben Lawrence) is a film of many layers. That the fight for the release of such a high profile figure as Julian Assange fell on the shoulders of his previously absent father is a testament to how controversial a figure the WikiLeaks founder became.
But Assange’s father also finds himself fighting for principles of free speech and press freedom that political authoritarianism, corporate power and public apathy have continued to erode.
And for something different…
One Day at a Time (Paul Chambers) - a beautiful, touching film about drug and alcohol addiction and recovery in Liverpool
Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgan) - an immersive ride through the music and art of David Bowie that seeks to show something of his inner life
No Place for You in Our Town (Nikolay Stefanov) - an intimate story of football gang members in the Bulgarian former industrial city of Pernik
2023: Russian politics & conflict in Ukraine
20 Days in Mariupol (Mstyslav Chernov) - This astonishing, Oscar-winning documentary was captured by journalists who remained in the strategic Ukrainian port of Mariupol even as the noose was tightening around a city besieged by invading Russian forces.
In the weeks following the Russian full-scale attack on Ukraine on 22 February 2022, Chernov and his crew were determined to share what was happening with the wider world, as Russian forces targeted civilians, residential buildings, and health facilities. They continued to film even as Russian tanks arrived in the streets around their building.
The film gives us an unrivalled insight into the brutality of the Russian attacks on Ukraine, and the war crimes committed by the occupying troops.
Watergate, Aleppo & Facebook
Read the second post in the series
The Price of Truth (Patrick Forbes) is a documentary about determination, bravery, and defiance in the face of state oppression. It tells the story of Dmitry Muratov and his small team of colleagues upholding the principles of press freedom through the publication of Russia’s one remaining independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.
In doing so they have to withstand not only the state’s suppression of opposition media, but also direct physical attacks against the paper’s staff.
And for something different:
Praying for Armageddon (Michael Rowley & Tonje Hessen Schei) - a chilling documentary exploring the power and influence of American Evangelical Christians at the very pinnacle of US politics as they aim to fulfil the Armageddon prophecy
Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes (Sam Pollard & Ben Shapiro) - the little known story of a musician and activist who was the pulse behind many of the greatest jazz musicians of the twentieth century - and after whom Max Roach Park in my London neighbourhood of Brixton is named
Looking back, 2022 and 2023 marked a palpable resurgence in documentary cinema after the pandemic.
Sadly, the stand-out festival films of those years are a reminder that despite a shared global shock emphasising our common humanity, the post-pandemic years were no less tarnished by conflict, authoritarianism, and attacks on political opponents and independent media than those before.
But in the face of such destruction, warmongering and authoritarianism, the filmmakers whose work was showcased at DocFest demonstrate a determination to bear witness, ensuring that these critical issues are not hidden from view.
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