PAN reader/reporter, Steve Bergson, a UK based documentary researcher, has been on the road over the last couple of months attending the Folkestone and Leipzig documentary festivals and has kindly sent us this overview.
‘The autumn documentary festivals in Folkestone and Leipzig have provided an interesting perspective on the state of play in
this form, especially in the light of the onslaught from tech not just on the genre but the whole “shooting match”. Naturally it
wouldn’t be mid third decade of the century without intense discussion about Gen-AI but it does seem as if AI might have
nailed the Achilles heel of the whole business of documentary. All the arguments about fact, fiction, faction and all points in
between are of course well rehearsed but when a film like The Walk intentionally mixes actuality of an event staged to
highlight the plight of refugees with some kind of dramatic interpretation of the life of a puppet on the road, meeting the Pope
and receiving an EU passport, things get even more confusing. At Leipzig, there was a session about these important
boundaries but so much talk seemed to resolve itself around commercial issues of how distributors, streamers and
broadcasters are able to label and place documentaries now, that the core concern about staging reality rather than
attempting to record it, essentially got lost. The use of animation and AI to cover parts of a story that couldn’t be or weren’t
recorded might be liberating in terms of which stories can be unfolded, but there is a difference about intention and this is
crucial. Salvador Dali’s description of his approach to painting as applying “the most imperialist fury of precision,” which he
famously deployed in his 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, demonstrated a wish to confound the audience but only
with the very surrealistic aim to “help discredit completely the world of reality.” Now AI can do exactly this trick but without
this same sense of subversion, aiming to elicit in the audience a questioning about what it’s seeing.’
‘Many of the films at both festivals attracted a wide age range of viewer which shows the continued appeal of the subject matter and approach which often embraced animation. However, too often films like Barbera Morganstern und die Liebe zur
Sache (“the Real Thing”) about a very German musician and jazz and electronica composer, became quite laboured in their
concentration on the musical techniques, especially on a computer. The coverage of reality was often too literal, boring even,
for an audience looking for useful insights into the creative process. This reservation applied to a lot of the titles on display at
these festivals, perhaps indicating a reaction against the Gen-AI-driven temptation to telescope reality into eye catching
snippets. The problem is, this makes the documentary genre even more niche because it only really appeals to the audiences
committed to interest in the subject. The film about late architect Miralles is even more specialist. It leads to a consideration
of likely outlets and audiences that inevitably concludes they exist in particular locations. It may be technically possible to
direct content down these avenues but if you lack wider appeal, is this really a sustainable route? Documentaries have forever
struggled to find a place other than in commercially sponsored spots. AI certainly enables a wider range of stories to be told
but could this make it harder to produce niche projects that have to find a dwindling audience? When the viewing figures
mentioned at Leipzig for some high profile films like the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning ’Touch Me Not’ are so small and the
box office takings so modest, it’s hard to conclude that such titles are anything but a bit self serving. They might tackle
difficult subjects as this undoubtedly does, but is it beholden on the filmmakers to be reaching a wider audience? If the
compromise to achieve this is a stronger narrative appeal, then just beyond the shores of cut price dramatic reconstruction
lies the land of Gen-AI. And that is a very different world where we may find we’re all strangers in a very strange land.’