3.30pm - The Sheffield Doc/Fest continued today with a packed schedule of films and sessions, kicking off with a screening of one of Nick Broomfield's most famous films – 1998's Kurt and Courtney, which told the story of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love.
In a question and answer session afterwards – which preceded a full masterclass with the documentary maker later today – Broomfield spoke about how difficult the film had been to make after Love forced its initial financial backers to pull out.
"It became a bit of a nightmare," he said. "Lots of films are like that – you get into them and wonder 'what have I got into here?' and you can't get out. That is what this film was like. I realised it was a complete nightmare when a private detective was following us around."
He added: "We had budgetted for five weeks shooting but ended up filming for 14 weeks."
The film ends with Broomfield getting up at an American Civil Liberties Union event, which Love was the guest of honour at, to publicly criticise the singer's attendance after she had previously threatened and attacked journalists. As he was speaking, he is seen being hustled off the stage.
Broomfield said he made the terrifying move for one reason only. "The thing that got me up on the stage is that I had to get an ending for the film," he said. "Desperation propels you."
Broomfield said he had subsequently heard back from Love: "I did get feedback from Courtney saying she was going to do stuff to me. I also remember dancing next to her once and leaving the place quite quickly. She is quite big, although thankfully she didn't recognise me."
11.50pm - Film maker Molly Dineen, who has made 17 films over 20 years, spoke about some of her most memorable documentaries in her session earlier today, including the one she made on Geri Halliwell when the pop star left the Spice Girls.
Dineen said Halliwell got in touch with her directly to ask if she would make the film – something she said had never happened before.
"There was this terrible tension at the beginning, really bad," Dineen said of her lack of control over the film, although she said she was able to wrest back most of it by the end.
The documentary about Halliwell was also rare for Dineen for another reason – because it was about a woman.
Dineen said that most of her films had been about men because she had been accepted at film school in order for women to make up half the intake – and as a reaction had focussed mainly on men in her work.
She was asked by former head of More4 Peter Dale whether her style of film-making involved her flirting with the subjects. "You can't be flirtatious if you don't fancy someone, can you?" she said, to laughter from the audience.
"It is a pseudo-coquetishness," Dineen said smiling.
"I don't think it is flirtatiousness. It is more me trying to be natural and me."
As well as her documentary work, Dineen also made a political broadcast for the Labour party soon after Tony Blair replaced John Smith as leader – something she says she now regrets.
"It was complete prostitution and shouldn't have been done," she admitted. "I said yes because I had just had a baby and I thought it would be short and interesting and I would learn a lot from him."
However, she said the process was hard work with too much intervention from Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell.
"My job was to make people see who he [Blair] was but the Labour party wanted him to be dynamic and full of focus and it just wasn't working," she said.
However, she said Blair was "extremely likable" – and in one clip shown to the audience, Blair was seen picking up the camera and interviewing Dineen as to why she was a film maker.
Dineen also hit out at the pressures on young film-makers today to add 'sensation' to their documentaries.
"I feel for young film makers who are pressured to add sensation in to their films," she said. "I think viewers are really intelligent and we should play up to that and not constantly debase everything. I feel really strongly about it. It is really muddying the waters for documentaries."
