A viewpoint from Tim Sparke, MD of MercuryMedia and www.joiningthedots.tv.

When the makers of the first global ‘disastainment’ docs – In Debt We Trust, An Inconvenient Truth, Enron, Outfoxed, etc. – warned of the impending financial, climate, energy, propaganda and leadership crises, which were slowly creeping up on the West, they were out of step with the ‘militainment’ agenda the global media was following. Now that TV news has moved on and to mention the War (Fawlty Towers) during the election cycle has become ‘verboten,’ a new crop of mainstream disaster docs are coming on stream. They include I.O.U.S.A. (the US is going bankrupt) and The Age of Stupid (a look back at our current environmental catastrophe set in 2050), with both titles tipped for awards and audiences.

Clearly, whilst screening films on TV which promote consuming less, saving more and distrusting mainstream media is antithetical to the very nature of broadcasting, I detect a perceptible but renewed enthusiasm amongst the mass-media for giving audiences a straighter version of the truth.

Docs are back on the agenda and this is good news for audiences. The bad news for documentary producers is that there are just too many finished docs for broadcasters, festivals and distributors from which to choose. As Sir David Attenborough would probably say, “The doc producer breed has replicated to such an extent that over supply threatens the viability of the species.” According to sources at BBC’s ‘Storyville,’ over 1,800 finished docs have been offered in the last year, and in reality, although there are 26 slots to fill, the majority will be for coproduced rather than finished projects.

My own company has been offered 400 films this year, and we take no more than 20 to market. Similarly the Sheffield, Hot Docs and Toronto film fests have reported massive increases in finished films looking for exposure. Whilst pressure is being brought to bear on cash-strapped Channel 4 to open up more slots for acquired docs and the European pubcasters’ remain committed to the genre, the number of slots available for the valuable work of documentary-makers isn’t going to rise in proportion to the number of finished films on offer.

So are there any solutions at hand? Well, sort of. The online market is still nascent, and will grow in time, with iTunes, Real Networks and joiningthedots.tv, amongst others, now offering docs on a pay-per-view download basis. There is also an advertiser-supported model for docs beginning to evolve, but its early days and rewards are slim. However it is the technological changes in traditional media which are curiously exciting this writer the most. Digital theatrical distribution is now a reality in many countries, as it enables limited release event-driven exhibitions to take place cost-effectively. (Joiningthedots.tv is scheduled to release nine titles theatrically in the UK next year, following five successful releases in ’08.)

The DVD market for long-tail titles, through on- and offline retailers like Amazon, Borders, HMV, etc. is beginning to show real returns, and the in-flight market with on-demand delivery is now a reality. In-flight buyers are seeking top docs to satisfy their high value business class passengers…though take note, all you self-distributing producers – they are still a tad sensitive about climate change!

So should doc-makers give up and get full-time paid employment during these hard times? No, though part-time work should be considered, especially if it’s a choice between art and paying the electricity bill. Seriously, the world needs the clarity of your authored polemics more urgently than ever, especially as the trust deficit between media corporations and audiences widens as the financial crisis hits home. But should you re-mortgage your home to finance your latest epic? Absolutely not. Foreclosure is not pleasant in any country.

The economic reality of oversupply and finite demand means that producers have, however, to take some responsibility for distribution. That’s if you can get distribution, and if you can learn to ‘partner’ with your distributor. (Remember, they’re your friend, not your punching bag.) If your ego can’t handle that, learn to self-distribute. And no, we distributors won’t cry if you go that route, we are a tough bunch and are used to ‘losing’ the latest ‘great’ film offered. As we sometimes remind each other in the lines for Easy Jet departures to MIPCOM and IDFA, documentaries are like London buses: we know there will always be another coming along in a minute and who knows where it might take you.

Julia Barron, head of current affairs at London’s October Films, examines the price journalists pay in order to keep the powerful honest.

Questioning the ‘official version’ is the raison d’etre of the journalist, and there are few more powerful places to do it than on national TV. So when those in power make the substantial claim that we are winning the ‘War on Terror,’ it’s not likely to be accepted without question by journalists. Unfortunately, those making such claims often go to some lengths to protect them from close examination.

In the summer of 2006, the UK Ministry of Defence decided the best way to avoid too much scrutiny was to ban all TV crews from going to the front line in Afghanistan. The ban was nimbly circumvented by filmmaker Sean Langan, who found an unofficial, hazardous route of his own. Commissioned through October Films to make a film about the war, he caught a lift with some Afghani soldiers ‘accompanied’ by British troops. The resulting film showed the extraordinary professionalism of our soldiers, but also the futility of their mission - as they wrested control of a key strategic town from the Taliban only to be ordered out by HQ. Two multi-award winning films would follow - Meeting the Taliban and Fighting the Taliban. The second film revealed how quickly the nato strategy unraveled and it helped to undermine the MOD’s efforts to keep the war out of sight and out of mind.

Langan’s latest Afghan project, made with a different prodco, resulted in him being kidnapped for three months. Happily, he got out alive, but it was a reminder that examining the official version of truth in conflict zones is a dangerous business. Last year, 170 journalists were killed or murdered, the second highest tally on record.

At least in the ‘War on Terror’ you pretty much know the line of fire. One of the hardest films we’ve made since I joined October Films wasn’t about a war at all, but rather a superpower.

Last year, Murdering the Truth for C4 investigated the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The producer, Paul Jenkins, was following leads that a rogue Chechen hit squad was responsible; but also - more alarmingly - that the FSB, the Russian State Security Service, was involved. Politkovskaya worked for Novaya Gazeta, an investigative newspaper which had long been a thorn in the side of President (now Prime Minister) Putin, himself a former KGB officer. She wasn’t the first of Novaya Gazeta’s journalists to be killed and we were aware that our own investigations were probing into a shadowy and dangerous world. We had to put a set of safety protocols in place every bit as rigorous as those for Langan in Afghanistan.

Late one night, a few weeks after Politkovskaya’s murder, I got a call from our producer in Moscow. He’d found something curious on an obscure Chechen website; could I follow it up? A London-based Russian dissident, a supporter of the Chechen cause, was claiming he’d been poisoned.

The next day I spoke to a very poorly sounding Alexander Litvinenko and arranged an interview. We had recently exchanged numbers at a public event protesting Politkovskaya’s murder, where he had publicly accused Putin of being behind it. He never made our meeting. A few hours after we spoke, he was rushed to an isolation unit. He later died there of what has been described as an ‘internal Chernobyl,’ a dose of radiation probably fed to him in a cup of tea. Litvinenko, himself a former FSB agent, is alleged to have been murdered by two former FSB agents, both of whom remain at large in Russia, despite an official British extradition request. One is now an MP in Russia’s parliament. To date, no one has been convicted of Politkovskaya’s murder.

Sometimes even the fog of war isn’t enough to be a patch on state cover-ups. We should salute the journalists who risk their lives to show us the truth as they find it, not as the powerful would like us to see it.