A film about feminist punk band Pussy Riot is set to open this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest as the event shifts to stage more live performances alongside screenings.

Sheffield Doc/Fest director Heather Croall said that Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer suited the festival, which takes place from 12-16 June, because of the city’s history of protest and its strong tradition in independent music.

“The filmmakers had unique access to the subjects - the footage shot in the court as the case is mounted against the Pussy Riot members is compelling, it plays out like a courtroom drama. Interviews with some of the family members are revealing and give us deeper insight into the story of this feminist punk band’s protest staged in a Moscow cathedral that took the world by storm”, she explained.

The film joins a range of other documentaries to be screened including world premieres of Basically, John Moped, A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power & Jayson Blair at the New York Times, Here Was Cuba and Mirage Men.

One of the highlights is the high quality of interactive documentaries, Croall added. “We have been working very hard to present cross-platform and interactive documentary for about seven years now and I would say this is the strongest year to date for that area of documentary storytelling,” she said.

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Meanwhile a live performance from Jarvis Cocker in the Crucible venue will accompany a screening of The Big Melt, a film celebrating 100 years of the steel industry. The booking is indicative of Sheffield Doc/Fest’s continued exploration of live events.

“We constantly try to stay ahead of the curve in terms of what do documentary makers need to help them stay alive in this incredibly competitive industry. We have been building our general public audience significantly in the last few years and the way we do that is again by trying to be ahead of the curve. This year we are doing a lot of screenings with live music performances”, said Croall.

Other event highlights include a speaking performances from Ira Glass, the man behind radio documentary series, This American Life. Michael Palin, Melvyn Bragg, Sue Perkins, BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow, Channel 4 chief creative officer Jay Hunt and Apocalypse Now editor Walter Murch will also be speaking.

The festival has also been awarded Lottery funding through the BFI’s Film Festival Fund which will provide extra resources to help it grow its audience.

The introduction of the new strand, Film on Film, is expected to help attract a wider mix of people.

“We are always looking for ways to build our general public audience so that the festival is a true mix of the industry and wider audiences. We find that putting on strands like this where we offer a film people know with a documentary about that film works really well for getting in new audiences,” said Croall.

“This year we are also presenting a film in a cave out in the Peak District which is on our doorstep. We’re screening the climbing documentary The Summit and we hope to attract an audiences that might not normally go to documentary - particularly the big climbing community of Sheffield.”

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