• Common statement

Paris, 12/12/07

The European documentary film is in danger !

Last week, European documentary film associations from fourteen different countries met in Paris. During four days of round tables and screenings of documentary films from many countries, we discussed the future of documentary film.

The event, the first of its kind, was called “Tour d’Europe du doc”. Documentary films are the indispensable instrument of the collective memory, and also the means of education and understanding between cultures, traditions, and countries.

But it is increasingly difficult to reach audiences with creative documentaries, because while the world itself is getting more and more complex, the visions of our lives are more and more formatted. Differentiation needs an artistic approach as much as a journalistic one.

Due to the idea that everything should be understood by everyone immediately, diversity tends to disappear. Mass media are more and more unwilling to take risks by showing films that have the possibility to go beyond reportage. During these four days of discussions it became clear that even though production conditions in the different countries vary widely, our problems and our goals proved to be the same. In spite of a great creative vitality in documentary film-making, as one can see in film festivals, on some cinema screens and on a few television channels, the genre faces constantly decreasing possibilities.

This results in precarious conditions for film-making and film-makers. The threat that this situation poses has led us to agree to take the following steps.

We aim :
- to strengthen our efforts on a national level in order to increase the awareness of the importance of creative documentaries;
- to co-ordinate lobbying for the funding of the production and distribution of the creative documentary on a European level;
- to define ways in which we can strengthen and protect the rights of the authors of creative documentaries;
- to work together on an international level, in order to find ways to deal with the challenges of the digital revolution;
- to explore the possibilities of alternative distribution channels;
- to ensure that the authors benefit from the use of their works.

Encouraged by the positive reception of the Paris public, the 14 associations present decided to continue the working process in order to further this initiative and reach our common goals.

The countries represented were: France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain and Slovakia.