FACTUAL


AUTHORED DOCUMENTARY


There’s strong demand among broadcasters across the board for documentary driven by directing talent with a passionate point of view. Pippa Considine reports


in high demand. The biggest names, such as Kim Longinotto, Adam Curtis, James Marsh, Norma Percy, add legendary status to a project. But the boom in documentary over the last decade or more has given space for a generation of distinctive film makers to carve a reputation for telling the stories that they believe in, with their own hallmark. “There’s a strong desire from broadcasters and


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streamers for films made by top directors,” says Brian Woods, founder of True Vision and BAFTA and Emmy winning director, producer of 2022 Grierson winner The Missing Children, directed by Tanya Stephan. Last year’s Grierson British Documentary


Awards demonstrates the scope of demand. The BBC won five, Netflix three, ITV and Channel 4 took two and Apple TV+ and Disney+ landed one. Sky had four nominations. “Having a really strong creative vision is


essential to us,” says Poppy Dixon, director of Docs and Factual Commissioning for Sky. “It’s a crowded market and a lot of people are playing in the same spaces, sometimes even making documentaries on the same subjects – so having a distinctive voice is so important to stand out.” James Rogan has a director credit on two films


on The Grierson Trust’s 50 must-see docs of the last 50 years: Uprising and Stephen: The Murder that Changed a Nation. “You put your whole self into the films you make,” he says. “You should care that much about the stories you tell because they are about people’s lives, so you should be clear about your reasons for telling them.”


On-screen authors With on-screen author documentary makers,


such as David Attenborough, Mobeen Azhar, Stacey Dooley, Louise Theroux, their engagement with the subject is there for all to see. Their star has been rising as the public’s interest in documentaries has waxed. BAFTA and Emmy winning director Brian


38 televisual.com Spring 2023


uthored documentary – those films rooted by conviction, passion and the personal stamp of the filmmaker – are


Docs: the vision thing


Woods has worked with Stacey Dooley on a number of productions. “Stacey and Louis are good examples. They’re not presenters for hire… they’re very much embedded in the production process.” At Mindhouse, creative director Arron Fellows


is a co-founder alongside Theroux. With this reputation for personal engagement, Mindhouse has also made Alice Levine’s series Sex Actually and David Baddiel: Jews Don’t Count, both for Channel 4. “We love that collaboration with


people with a point of view, it’s always a team effort,” says Fellows. On-screen filmmaker talent has had less


traction with streamer documentaries, where finding an internationally recognised anchor is a challenge, even more so where they double as filmmaker. Beyond Attenborough, Bertie Gregory has come into the frame, with Disney+ ordering Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory. The sense of authorship often comes through an on-screen personality. “There’s been a wave of


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