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News Roundup: Climate Change Documentaries Breaking Through?

The COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference opens in Glasgow on October 31, bringing urgency to the race to save our planet. Documentary commissioners, producers and distributors have responded with lots of new orders. Does global warming have the urgent audience appeal of programs that address hot button issues like true crime, gender, and social …

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In memory of Matt White, passionate archivist and producer: David Royle’s tribute

Matt White recently passed away due to cancer. Here, his friend and colleague, David Royle, pays tribute to the passionate archivist, producer and longtime active member of documentary community. Few people have made a more important contribution to the world of non-fiction program-making than Matt White, but his name seldom appeared in the credits and …

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Netflix Europe commissions ROOM 2806: THE ACCUSATION, an original documentary series from France’s CAPA Productions. Case Study

Room 2806: The Accusation is a 4-parter from France’s CAPA Productions that follows the sexual assault case in New York involving French presidential candidate and IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. On May 14 2011, Nafissatou Diallo, a hotel maid reported that DSK had forced her to perform oral sex in his suite in the Sofitel Hotel …

Netflix Europe commissions ROOM 2806: THE ACCUSATION, an original documentary series from France’s CAPA Productions. Case Study Read More »

Netflix 2023 What You Need To Know Now


Top 100 UK Documentaries in 2020: The Land & Country theme comforts viewers in a troubled year

This week’s post covers the UK’s highest-rated documentary and unscripted programs for the year in which COVID struck. My ratings snapshot for 2020 is comprised of: The Top 50 in the combined Documentary and Lifestyle / Hobbies categories. My Takeaways. Then #51-100. The challenging landscape The wonderfully inventive UK Factual industry is enduring the triple disruptions of: COVID, …

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Oscar Documentary Award 2021. APOCALYPSE ’45: The Road from Concept to Qualification

The Academy announced the eligible candidates for Oscar consideration in the Documentary Feature category for 2021. APOCALYPSE ’45 is one of the candidates. Don’t miss our detailed Case Study of how producer / director Erik Nelson developed and completed his gripping archive-based project for Discovery. Case Study APOCALYPSE ’45: Discovery’s powerful WW2 documentary in virtual …

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PBS’s Science Strand NOVA: The production pipeline, sources, new digital platforms and more…

I turned my spotlight on to the NOVA strand in time for next week’s virtual World Congress of Science & Factual Producers. NOVA is PBS‘s science documentary powerhouse brand. Now enjoying its 5th decade on broadcast, NOVA is expanding across multiple digital platforms including YouTube, podcasting and more. Read more here about NOVA’s pipeline, funders, co-pro …

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Netflix 2023 What You Need To Know Now


Humboldt: Epic Explorer – A €600,000 Drama Doc from ZDFE, Spiegel TV, Arte and Smithsonian Networks. A Case Study

Humboldt: Epic Explorer is a historical dramatized documentary about the scientist Alexander von Humboldt and his pioneering work in South America. The project was sparked by Andrea Wulf’s best-selling biography, and developed by veteran producer Tilman Remme. It was successfully pitched to European and American commissioning editors at the Science Producers’ Congress 2018 in Stockholm. All …

Humboldt: Epic Explorer – A €600,000 Drama Doc from ZDFE, Spiegel TV, Arte and Smithsonian Networks. A Case Study Read More »

Distributing Discovery’s APOCALYPSE ’45 in the COVID Era. A podcast with Abramorama’s Karol Martesko-Fenster

Abramorama COO Karol Martesko-Fenster reveals how COVID forced a rapid turnaround in the theatrical distribution strategy for Discovery’s Apocalypse ’45. He describes the ‘virtual theatrical’ release for Oscar nominee Erik Nelson’s gripping archive-based documentary about the Pacific campaign that brought WW2 to an end. Karol shares his pre-COVID strategy and its radical switch into a …

Distributing Discovery’s APOCALYPSE ’45 in the COVID Era. A podcast with Abramorama’s Karol Martesko-Fenster Read More »