Professional

Professional symposium: Distribution channels for independent documentary filmmaking

It is not easy for independent documentaries to access the usual distribution channels for audiovisual work. Apart from festivals and specialist film series, the media shows us what we don't know (and sometimes tries to change what we do know) by using stereotypical notions and ideas. The world is open to documentaries, which do more than simply reveal the facts or give accounts. Independent documentaries need to reach an audience, but this calls for more than just opening cinemas or gaining space on traditional television.

The ease with which users can now share videos online shows how previous barriers to global distribution have come down. Free and easy access to documentaries has boosted both creation and distribution and rewritten the rules of the industry.

Changes to the current state of affairs in independent filmmaking will only come about through actions driven by policies from the world of the image. These policies should link production, circulation and access, and win recognition and recompense for the work done, so filmmakers can survive and continue to create, produce, circulate their films and access new projects.

Bringing together programmers and buyers of documentaries for television, festivals and innovative projects should increase global understanding of the state of the art in the current market and promote new distribution strategies for the future.

Supported by the ICIC's Business Development Service, MEDIA Antena Catalunya, Catalan Fims & TV and Aved Producciones.