I watched again with producer Lawrence Elman, The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World – which describes very precisely, well, a very big kitsch palace in Hunam Province that seats 5,000. Through the activities of the waitresses, cooks etc. and in the course of many banquets, you see, (a) the Chinese eat almost and, (b) that eating defines their lives.

The film was my idea – I went to a place like this – and the only scene we took out involved a cooked dog. The contest in which a live fish is cooked, ending on a plate in 45 seconds, remains.

I was supposed to arrange dinner for friends and the film-makers I was here to support. Having messed up with the reservation, I felt guilty – no redemption here. But I ended up boozing with my pal Ben Lewis, art critic and reviewer of the follies of the contemporary art boom and others including Don Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus; and the redoubtable Nick Broomfield. I'm going to sound like a luvvie and a name-dropper; that's the problem with blogs.

Hegedus and Pennebaker (The War Room, Don't Look Back etc.) make the kind of film I love: curious, unjudgemental, funny, warm in their appreciation of the sheer variety of life. And they, too, like their share of glitz, despite being homely, kind and approachable.

Broomfield is said to be arrogant, but this merely means, in my experience, that he doesn't waste time. Broomfield, by the way, is a great journalist. The films in which he appears survive the most rigorous fact-checking – he believes in being truthful.

We talked about a favourite bete noire of docs folk – holdbacks and premieres. Some European festivals (not Sheffield) insist on showing premieres – if you have shown your film, or wish to show it elsewhere, even in your own country, they won't take it. In the US, Sundance snobbily have similar rules, but they have begun to bend them. We all think these rules are ridiculous – films should be shown when and where people wish to watch them. The whole idea of a documentary premiere is a bit silly.

Just as annoying are holdbacks – the requirement for the Oscars that a film must not have been shown on television to qualify for selection. Films that we've funded in Europe cannot be shown until they've been in a certain number of cinemas throughout the US. This is ridiculous, too.

NIck Fraser is series editor for the BBC's flagship documentary series 'Storyville'. He is attending and will be blogging from the Sheffield Doc/Fest, 5-9 November.