The last week of October sees the launch of a new Colchester-based film festival that aims to change the face of the festival circuit. Essex DocFest, which will reinvest a percentage of profits back into documentary projects, has received hundreds of submissions from documentary filmmakers from around the world.

 

The idea behind DocFest making it stand out from other festivals is a desire to create a community for filmmakers and to reinvest profits back into documentary projects. In the future, the organisers plan to pay filmmakers a proportion of the box office for their films, which will make Essex DocFest a uniquely desirable event for documentary filmmakers.

 

The festival will start on Wednesday 28th October and finish on Sunday 1st November, with documentaries organised into categories including emerging filmmakers, human rights, women filmmakers, disability, Europe and shorts. There are many introductions and Q&As with the filmmakers also available to ticket holders. The opening night of the festival will be a screening of the locally-produced documentary, Lifted (Nic Blower, 2019), about a new therapy treating former soldiers suffering from PTSD by taking them fishing.

 

This year, the festival is completely online due to the restrictions of the ongoing pandemic, but festival organisers hope to stage DocFest as a physical event in various venues in Colchester in 2021. Organisers hope to establish DocFest as a major documentary festival and make Colchester an important destination for documentary filmmakers.

 

Tickets for access to the five-day online festival are available on Eventbrite for £2.80, or free to students and unwaged people. Donations can also be made when purchasing tickets, with a proportion of profits being reinvested in future documentary projects.

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Vote for your favourite films here

 

For the full programme visit:                                                   Details finalists programme: