Guide Note

Documentary films are non-fiction features which “document” the truth of people, places or events, rarely follow a classic narrative structure and involve real people rather than actors. Documentaries are typically made on much lower budgets than feature films and, especially during the era of Cinema Verite and Direct Cinema (1950-1970), were a direct reaction against big-budget Hollywood studios. Documentary film has seen a recent surge in popularity, with such films as Fahrenheit 9/11, An Inconvenient Truth, March of the Penguins and Super Size Me earning as much as big-budget features at the box office.

Fast Facts

1. The term "documentary" was first applied to film in a 1926 review of Moana
2. Fahrenheit 9/11 earned over US$228 million in ticket sales
3. The newsreel is an example of early documentary film
4. Used as a political weapon in Latin America and Quebec during the 1960s & 70s
5. The first festival dedicated to documentary film began in Nyon, Switzerland in 1969
6. Many early documentary films were propagandist, such as those produced during the World War I and II
7. The earliest moving pictures were documentary films, as they were simply recordings of daily activities
8. Technological developments, such as digital video cameras and computer editing software have further popularized documentary film making