
The third edition was held in October 2023.
FDF Doc Club screenings return to the Silver Screen Cinema in January 2024.
Programme Highlights from the 2023 edition
This year's festival featured stories about body image, LGBTQIA rights, disability, performance, family, migration, dementia, big stones, little puffins, skating, saunas and a whole lot more.
Your Fat Friend
The rise of Aubrey Gordon, from anonymous blogger as "Your Fat Friend" to NYTimes best-seller and beloved podcaster. Fatness, family and making change
Find out moreSmoke Sauna Sisterhood
In the darkness of smoke sauna, women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences, and wash off the shame trapped in their bodies
Find Out MoreCopa 71
This is Copa 71, the unofficial Women’s World Cup in Mexico City. Dismissed by FIFA, this event has been entirely written out of history. Until now.
Find Out MoreBlack Outside - Film, Walk and communal meal
The personal, communal and ancestral experiences of people of colour with the land and natural surroundings of the UK and the Caribbean
Find Out MoreThe Tell Tale Rooms
A father-daughter VR artwork collaboration blending immersive animation, archive and live-action to celebrate a rare neurological syndrome
Find Out MoreLands End
A journey of ups and downs, following Barney Page as he rides the length of the British Isles on his skateboard in memory of his friend Ben Raemers.
Find Out More
Festival Trailer 2023

Filmmaking Challenge
A massive congratulations to the winners of our Filmmaking Challenge, run in partnership with Klip Films and Screen South. The winner of best film was Oliver Pratt for John and the Ossuary, and winner of best environmental film was Joni Lambert for The Spiral Society. Runners up were Helen Lindon, Anna Braithwaite and Josta Hopps. Audience Award winner was, again, Joni. Congratulations to them all, we loved doing this challenge and we hope to run it again next year!
We had a really wonderful time at Folkestone Doc Fest and really hope the festival goes from strength to strength. For many of us filmmakers, festivals make the long arduous process of making films worth it, but they can also be prohibitively expensive. So, thank you so much for covering the expenses for our travel, accommodation, feeding us, and the cherry on top, the prize money for the Audience Award. We will spend this on the Movie Makers, and raise a glass to Folkestone Doc Fest and the future of cinema.
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