Sheffield Doc/Fest brings the international documentary family together to celebrate the art and business of documentary making for five intense days each November. When DCA was offered the chance screen the “Best of the Fest” we jumped at the chance. Proving that truth really is stranger than fiction, this weekend of screenings is a feast for anyone interested in non-fiction filmmaking.

Henry Singer’s gripping film tells the story of the extraordinary life and brutal death of Joan Root, and of her campaign to save her beloved Lake Naivasha in Kenya. The film is both biopic and classic whodunit.

Who killed Joan Root? Was it the fish poachers, whom Root stopped from plying their illegal trade? Was it her once-loyal staff member Chege? Or was it someone closer to home? Through telling the story, Singer opens a window onto the simmering tensions in an Africa still emerging from colonialism and anxious to take its place in the global economy. For it is the Kenyan rose, which is exported by the millions from Naivasha to the rest of the world, that has brought – not just jobs and foreign exchange earnings – but the environmental destruction that Root worked so hard to stop and which may have ultimately cost her her life. A beautifully crafted and heartfelt homage to a fearless campaigner which provokes some unsettling questions about trying to stop ‘progress’ in the developing world.

Winner of the Doc/Fest Sheffield Green Award

A pass to see all the films in the Sheffield Doc/Fest series is only £15.00 (£10.00 conc)