Filmmaker says Sheffield "100 per cent deserves to win" UK City of Culture
“There's a reason why so many people move here. The cultural scene is just growing and growing”
The filmmaker who created a video series for Sheffield's City of Culture bid said the project made him appreciate the heritage of places he had walked by many times.
Aidan Joseph is a freelance videographer who has filmed festivals, events, businesses, charities and organisations around the city he's called home for the last 10 years.
He said: “I moved here as a student and I've stayed here. I built a career here. I love it here. I'm an outdoorsy person. I love being next to the Peak District. I love the music scene."
Earlier this year he successfully applied to create a series of videos with Visit Sheffield, the marketing department of Sheffield City Council, for the 2029 UK City of Culture bid.
Mr Joseph, who lives in Nether Edge, said he enjoys shooting short documentaries that celebrate people doing “interesting or impressive things,” with a style that is fast paced, energetic and musically-led.
“I've been shouting about Sheffield for the past decade through my work," he said. "The City of Culture series felt like an extension of what I'd already been doing, and what I care the most about."
The project involved an announcement teaser trailer and then six one-minute-long films with themes of belonging, making, theatre, inclusivity, music and nature.
He said past successful City of Culture bids have a “through line that ties it all together” and for Sheffield, this was "from the ground up - the way in which culture is born in Sheffield from a grassroots level and is built and forged by the people."
He used the example of musical talent starting at grassroots venues in Kelham Island or Abbeydale Road, moving through Yellow Arch Studios or the Foundry, all the way to Tramlines.
Mr Joseph said his experience working with the council's marketing team was “amazing”.
“They were so receptive to my input and my ideas. I had a lot of creative say in how we should approach things. But also, I really didn't need to change a whole lot because it was so well thought out."
He said the project has given him an “understanding of the significance of places or buildings that I walk past” and a deeper appreciation of Sheffield and its industrial heritage.
“We interviewed Mary Sewell, who is a ceramicist, who has an art studio in Portland Works. She's been there for well over a decade," he said.
"Portland Works was the first place in the world that mass manufactured stainless steel.
"This site of historical significance is a place where there was a world first.
"We went to talk to Ernest Wright, one of the last handmade scissor manufacturers in Britain.
"They've been doing it for over 100 years, and that lineage of stainless steel manufacturing is something they still work with to this day, handmade on a small scale, making precision tools that are meant to last you for a lifetime. And they have such pride in doing so.
"I knew that steel was huge industrially for the economy in Sheffield, but I didn't know that stainless steel was discovered in Sheffield. I didn't know that it was first mass manufactured as cutlery in Portland Works.
"It was just wonderful to deepen my knowledge and understanding of the history and storylines of Sheffield's making heritage."
Mr Joseph is confident Sheffield deserves to win UK City of Culture 2029.
“There's a reason why so many people move here," he said. "So much of that is because of our incredible cultural offerings as a city, and the artistic cultural scene that is just growing and growing.
"The city was already somewhere that I was happy to call home, but it's really a city on the up, it's somewhere that's growing and exploding with culture.
"I think it 100 per cent deserves to win."
Councillor Ben Miskell, chair of the economic development, skills and culture committee at Sheffield City Council, said: "Reaching the longlist was a significant milestone and a real vote of confidence in Sheffield.
"Since then, hundreds of people have helped shape a bid that is rooted in our communities and our proud cultural heritage.
“We're optimistic about the months ahead and hopeful that Sheffield will be shortlisted this autumn. Whatever the outcome, the bid has already brought people together behind a shared ambition to celebrate our city and its future."
The shortlist of up to four of the nine cities currently in the running will be announced this autumn, with the winner announced in December or early January 2027.