‘Your Fat Friend’ Wins Audience Award At 30th Sheffield DocFest

Matthew Carey

19 June 2023 at 10:00 am·2-min read

Your Fat Friend has received a very friendly reception at Sheffield DocFest. The documentary directed by Jeanie Finlay was announced today as the winner of the Audience Award at the prestigious festival in the North of England.

The film came to Sheffield for its international premiere after holding its world premiere at Tribeca Fest on June 8. Both Finlay and the protagonist of the film, Aubrey Gordon, attended DocFest.

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Finlay’s film chronicles “the rise of Aubrey Gordon from anonymous blogger (Your Fat Friend) to NYTimes best seller. Her aim? A paradigm shift in the way that we view fat people and the fat on our bodies. The most meaningful change is when her family start listening to her message.”

The 30^th edition of Sheffield DocFest concludes today after opening on June 14. More than 4,000 votes were tallied for the Audience Award.

“To bring a film home to Sheff DocFest, a festival that I have been coming to and showing films at for 20 years, has been incredibly emotional and meaningful,” Finlay said in a statement. “Our international premiere at the Crucible Theatre was an experience I will remember and treasure for the rest of my life. This is my ninth feature film, my most personal yet. I thought I had made a film for myself, so to receive the audience award is so wonderful. Thank you to the brilliant Sheffield DocFest audience for showing up and sharing this amazing experience with us. Thank you also to our visionary funders Field of Vision, BFI Doc Society and Broadway Cinema for making this independent documentary possible. We can’t wait to take the film out into the world.”

Your Fat Friend is directed and produced by Finlay and produced by Suzanne Alizart. Executive producers are Charlotte Cook (Field Of Vision), Sandra Whipham (Doc Society), and Shanida Scotland (Doc Society).

“It has been overwhelming watching how films have resonated with our audiences at Sheffield DocFest and in particular Your Fat Friend, Jeanie Finlay’s heartwarming portrait of writer and activist Aubrey Gordon, made it clear that documentary really empowers discussion, empathy and connection,” noted Sheffield DocFest Creative Director Raul Niño Zambrano. “People travelled from across the U.K. to see this film, and connect with its maker and subject, a real testament to the power of non-fiction narratives to represent real life experience of those [who] can so often be overlooked.”

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