The Quest for Ethical Practices in Documentary Production
Unpaid work, funding cutbacks, fragmented online audiences, mental exhaustion. Despite the documentary industry’s many challenges, solutions are emerging to make production more sustainable and humane. Here we recap the professional programming at this year’s Montreal International Documentary Festival, which took place in Montreal from November 24 to November 26.
“It used to be that making documentaries was a lifestyle,” mused TAK Films producer Line Sander Egede during the Montreal International Documentary Festival, or RIDM (based on its French acronym), this past November. “People didn’t live on big salaries, but they were okay.”
During Forum RIDM, the festival’s professional program, Sander Egede lamented that, in her experience, that’s no longer possible. Instead, filmmakers have to take on multiple projects and always project an aura of success to the institutions that finance their films.
“We all know the only way to succeed is to prove that you can do it,” she said. “Financiers are not going to finance us if we say, ‘Oh, by the way, I'm not doing this, this, this. It's not in the budget.’ Or ‘You have to give me more money because I'm not able to take care of the promotion, the social media.’”
As a result, she explained, the list of unpaid tasks grows, both in pre-production and production.
Throughout the forum, the documentary industry’s precarious position was attributed to various factors, including the economic slowdown, the erosion of institutional funding, and a decrease in revenue generated from platforms.
Mounting Difficulties in Documentary Distribution
The documentary industry has yet to find its place in a world of ever-increasing streaming platforms. Many of the platforms that once bought lots of documentaries are now producing them themselves and in far fewer numbers.
At a panel titled To Circulate Is to Exist: The Stakes of Documentary Reach, several industry experts weighed in on the issues.
According to INDOX founder Luke Brawley this new reality is forcing the industry to return to a territory-by-territory sales model. In other words, the agent has to sell the documentary to each country individually and find a local distributor before releasing the film internationally. “I would say this is sometimes a lot more valuable,” he offered, “because they can actually put it into cinemas, where platforms can’t.”
Meanwhile, alternative documentary distribution networks continue to develop.
“Museums are extending the life of certain films by organizing screenings, and some festivals are setting up film acquisition and distribution divisions,” explained Lidia Damatto, co-founder and partner at the international sales agency MoreThan Films.
Community screenings are also valuable. Anja Dziersk, co-founder and festival manager at Rise and Shine World Sales, pointed to The Day Iceland Stood Still. The Icelandic-American co-production was screened at least 100 times in the U.S. simply thanks to promotion on the film’s website.
Documentary screenings in schools represent another lifeline for many productions. “I believe we make more money in the education market than at the box office,” said Benjamin Hogue, CEO of Les Films du 3 Mars.
Also worth reading: Making Access to Documentaries Easier for Educators
Brawley also highlighted the potential of the U.S. educational market. “When a film gets indexed in an American university library, hundreds of schools have access to it. And that can generate impressive revenue,” he said.
Less Hierarchy, More Accountability
At the event’s opening luncheon, Leonard Cortana, manager of inclusion programs and strategic partnerships at EURODOC, a training program for documentary producers, challenged some preconceived notions about the documentary industry.
“We perpetuate the illusion that people are at the heart of our industry because we’ve established all these rituals, like one-on-one meetings, conferences and consultations,” said Cortana, “but behind all of that, we have to recognize that performance also plays a significant role.”
To create more equitable relationships, Cortana wants to see change in the documentary world’s hierarchy. He criticizes some major festivals for managing access to their venues based on colour codes assigned to filmmakers, producers and funders — for example, brown allows access to the first floor, green to the bar, etc.
“Many producers have told me they’ve spent their savings and fought to get a visa, but once they got to the festival, they didn’t have access to the people who make the decisions,” he said.
Cortana also questioned the selection criteria for major festivals. “For which kind of film do we give an award,” he asks, wondering aloud if an award should go to a sensational movie that was made under unpleasant conditions, or a less dramatic one that has a more sustainable approach on set.
He’s in favour of awards that highlight a film’s accountability or, at the very least, the introduction of ethical criteria concerning the well-being of the crew and subjects. He even suggests paying documentary subjects, or co-producing the film with them, as a way to make the industry more humane.
| MAKING IT PERSONAL During the panel To Circulate Is to Exist: The Stakes of Documentary Reach, Anja Dziersk, founder of the international film sales agency Rise and Shine Films, said she’s noticed a trend toward documentary filmmakers using more personal subject matter, which can be good and bad. “Over the last two or three years, many personal films have been made,” she reported. “Every filmmaker goes back to their own families and stories and makes films about them. I think that's good. Of course, I can relate to it, and I also see that it resonates with the festivals. Unfortunately, it's not working for sales. They're still [interested in] the more topic-driven films.” |
