Sheffield Doc/Fest Winners Include Sundance Duo ‘Midnight Family’ & ‘Midnight Traveller’
Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family won the grand jury award at this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest, which held its closing ceremony last night (June 11).
The Sundance premiere follows a family trying to make a living by operating a private ambulance in Mexico city. The jury praised the film for providing a “timely warning to the dangers of privatised healthcare.” The top prize also came with a £2,000 windfall.
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The jury gave a special mention to Hazzan Fazili’s Midnight Traveller (another Park City premiere) and Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts’ SXSX and Cannes title For Sama. The latter also won the audience award.
The respected UK documentary showcase presented its inaugural international award (with a £1,000 prize) to Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s Earth, which charts the environmental destruction wrought by large-scale mining. A special mention went to Kristof Bilsen’s Mother.
The £2,000 Tim Hetherington award, named in honor of the UK photo-journalist killed in the Libyan civil war in 2011, was given to Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang’s One Child Nation, which chronicles China’s one-child policy. The film also debuted at Sundance.
This year’s New Talent Award went to Archana Atul Phadke’s About Love, profiling three generations of a South Mumbai family as they prepare for a family wedding. The winner of the The Whickers film & TV funding prize, which awards £80,000 towards the film’s production, was All That Remains by Amanda Mustard. Anna Oliker’s AZ House came in second, receiving a £15,000 grant.
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