The Cannes Film Festival often shines a light on the new wave of films to come. It is there that we get our first glance at films, but it is only the beginning of a long voyage that will eventually see these stories shared by many. At this past Cannes Film Festival, for example, the Palme d'Or was presented to a film from Romania: 4 Luni, 3 Saptamini si 2 Zile; or 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. That's a sure indication that the world is changing.

A few weeks before the festival, I find myself in Cannes. MIP is in full swing. It's a huge hive of activity - a place where productions from the whole world converge. Everyone comes, hoping to stock up for their channel, and fill their slots. Films fill a need.

But when the logic of the global market so often decides the content, even for documentaries, is it time to reconsider the role of the commissioning editor? I decide to thwart the usual drive to simply fill slots and instead open myself to the world.

Television has a voracious appetite, but the images ingested have a different value now. It's not like the cinema anymore. You have to fill an increasingly precise set of expectations from the audience. The viewer is a client - a king who must be courted.

But the kingdom in which we're working is not so simple to run. It is complex, and in it we face an infinite set of constraints which often cause us so much interference that we are prevented from seeing the potential of what we do, and what is really important.

It reminds me of the impressionist painting The Lunch on the Grass by Edouard Manet, refused at the Paris Salon in the name of a certain idea of what a painting should be. In those days, decision-makers at galleries held in their hands the power to decide which works of art would connect most with the public.

The academic way in which we make decisions now can often prevent us from discovering the most beautiful of revelations. We cling to recognized and widely shared values. Many of the international coproductions we carry out are weakened by our need to reach a common agreement. Are we producing, or just reproducing? Why risk a creation when a recreation is a safer bet? The decision to take risks has been taken out of the hands of the filmmaker and placed into the hands of the broadcaster and the commissioning editor.

The role of commissioning editor is as much a privilege as it is a heavy responsibility, for the choices we make today often determine what's on offer tomorrow. Should we protect ourselves and our positions, or nourish a piece of art that doesn't belong to us and concentrate on bringing to light the most beautiful discoveries we can? It's a question of view - or, more accurately, glance. In Arabic, 'glance' has two meanings. It can refer to 'a look;' but it also describes the source of a spring or river, a place where rain returns to the earth. It describes something that is both taken and something that is returned.