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Documentaries on the Big Screen
Forum 2003

As part of the 6th Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal, which took place from November 14 to 23, 2003, the Documentary Network organized a forum on theatrical screenings of documentaries. More than 150 audiovisual professionals attended the event.

Forum 2003 took the form of a seminar, with a lecture, panels and debates on the issue of theatrical screenings of documentary. After an opening lecture by Simone Vannier, examples of theatrical distribution networks for documentary that exist in other countries (Documentaries at the box-office - International models) were presented to the participants. The second panel (Documentaries at the box-office - National models) reflected on the models under discussion, identifying the obstacles and, ideally, the solutions that will open the way to broad distribution of point-of-view documentaries in theatres in Quebec and Canada.

During the afternoon, the focus was set on self-distribution. How does a documentary-maker, as part of the filmmaking process, take on the task of reaching audiences and diverse communities?

The Documentary Network will use the comments and conclusions of Forum 2003 to establish a task force on the issue of distributing feature-length documentaries in Quebec and Canada.