The Show of Shows

Ladies and gentlemen! The Show of Shows takes you back to the exciting era of travelling circus performers, freak shows, cabaret performances and fairground attractions. The film shows rare and never-before-seen archive footage of fairgrounds, circus entertainment, vaudeville and variety shows from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among other things, we see home videos of large circus families and footage of crazy acts that amazed audiences at the time.

This documentary, by Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson, uses footage from the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield and is accompanied by an original soundtrack by Georg Holm and Orri Páll Dýrason of Sigur Rós, in collaboration with Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and Kjartan Dagur Holm. The film premiered in 2015 as the opening film at Sheffield Doc/Fest and was screened at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and the Sarajevo Film Festival. 

The Show of Shows is part of the Spotlight retrospective of director Benedikt Erlingsson, who is this year's guest of honour at the Northern Film Festival