“What we’re seeing is something new and exciting, and it’s just the beginning,” says enthusiastic entertainer, provocateur and documentarian extraordinaire Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me). “They say that documentaries are back in vogue, but it’s more than that — I think they’re back for good.”

Consider the evidence, says Spurlock. Blockbuster documentaries such as March of the Penguins are cleaning up at the box office ($106 million and counting), while thoughtful fare such as Darwin’s Nightmare and Murderball wows the critics. Everything from environmental activism (Grizzly Man) to crooked accountancy (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) is coming under the documentary spotlight.

Even traditionally escapist Hollywood fare is being weighted with the ballast of non-fiction (Capote; Good Night, and Good Luck). Add to this the unprecedented success of Spurlock’s own burger-baiting endeavours and you have the hallmark of a genuine cinematic phenomenon. Now, adds Spurlock, if only the UK could get in on the act. Enter, stage left, Britdoc 2006. Funded by Channel 4’s British Documentary Film Foundation and Nokia, and set to arrive in Oxford in the last week of July, this festival promises to capture the international non-fiction Zeitgeist as well as reignite home-grown passions for feature documentary making.

According to the festival’s director, Beadie Finzi (the producer of the recent doc Unknown White Male), Britdoc will every year transform Oxford and its environs in the same way that Park City, Utah, is transformed by the high-profile Sundance Film Festival. “But, more importantly, the festival will show young British film-makers that making feature documentaries for the cinema is now imperative,” Finzi says. “We can show them how to get deals, how the industry works, and how to get their films on to the big screen.”

The festival will include director masterclasses, one-on-one documentary surgeries (where ailing ideas can be breathed back into life), a potentially career-making “pitching forum” (your idea sold in “a few minutes”), as well as a roster of cutting-edge documentary screenings and premieres.

“The real challenge of Britdoc,” adds the festival’s chief executive, Jess Search, “is to establish an independent British cinema-based tradition. And one that’s not rooted in television.”

Yes, British television documentaries are of an impeccably high standard, says Search, but consistent TV commissions for non-fiction format shows such as Wife Swap and Faking It have neutralised the would-be documentarian’s desire to go out there and make either daring incisive features or Michael Moore-sized big-screen extravaganzas. “Instead, you
become lazy,” Search says. “If you’re able to get a good wage out of your next project why would you want to go and make auteur work?”

“I don’t know if it’s exactly laziness,” argues Spurlock, who will be giving documentary masterclasses at the festival, and whose latest series 30 Days is now being shown on Channel 4, which funded its making. “You guys just happen to be lucky enough to have a creative environment that is conducive to documentary film-makers finding financial support in national television. And we’d love to have that in the US, but American TV networks think that documentaries are like medicine, and that no one wants to tune in to take medicine.”

Even so, Spurlock says that if inspired young film-makers insist on leaving the protective umbrella of TV commissioning then he’ll be on hand during the festival with plenty of hard-won documentary-making survival tips. First among these, he says, is “not to put yourself in danger. Which is something I tend to do all the time.”

Following that you should get the money from anywhere. And then just finish the film. Oh, and don’t expect any money, he adds. “No one on Super Size Me got paid a dime while we were making it. For me, the reward was just working on the film and getting it finished. So I tell every film-maker not to go into a movie saying: ‘How much money can I make on this?’ Because right then you’re going into it from the wrong angle.”
Search agrees. “Nobody ever got involved in documentaries to make money. You get involved because it’s a privilege to make something that you’re passionate about and that you believe in.”

Ultimately, content is king, says Spurlock, who is currently in pre-production on his follow-up to Super Size Me. (“I could tell you about it, but I’d have to kill you.”)

“The most important thing for me is that I follow my passion. And if I care about it, and if I’m diving into it, then it’s going to be great. Because I’m going to pour every bit of my heart and soul into it. And that’s what everybody should do.”

On yer bike...

Last month ITN Archive invited film-makers to pitch an idea for a 3-minute documentary on the bicycle. The four winning pitches, to be announced on April 14, will be commissioned by Channel 4. The film-makers will be guests at Britdoc 2006 (www.britdoc.org)
Super Size Me, Channel 4, tonight (10pm). Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days, Channel 4, Tuesdays (11.05pm)

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