About the Documentary Film Council
The Documentary Film Council (DFC) is the first national membership association for UK documentary film. Owned and run by and for its members, the DFC represents the sector to industry and government and works to build documentary film culture and community across the UK.
Our Mission is to:
- Represent the documentary sector at the highest levels of industry and government, advocating for solutions to the challenges is faces.
- Build a national membership organisation that strengthens documentary film culture and community across the nations and regions of the UK.
Addressing the challenges facing the documentary industry requires an organisation that is collectively held, and which has a remit to represent the sector. As a charitable co-operative, the DFC is owned by its members and run by an elected Board of Trustees.
Vision
Our vision is of a sustainable independent documentary film industry characterised by diversity of people, films, audiences, and revenue streams. We want to build a grassroots, accountable organisation that will listen to the community, amplify its views and take action. In this way, we can build a world-leading documentary film culture in the UK, one that maximises the potential of this vibrant and vital cultural form for our economy, our culture and our democracy.
The Story So Far
The DFC developed from the UK Feature Docs research project, which was funded by the Art and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and led by academics at UWE Bristol from 2018-2021. The research evidenced the extent to which the independent documentary sector had ‘fallen through the cracks’ of UK screen industry policy. The value, characteristics and needs of independent documentary are unique but often poorly understood by those operating outside the field. As a result, independent documentary in the UK has been under-valued and under-funded, and the challenges posed by an increasingly commercial screen sector have been largely unchecked.
As part of the ‘Industry Futures’ strand of the project, the research team worked with filmmakers and organisations across the sector on a major process of policy research and development, the findings of which were published in two reports: Keeping it Real (2020), based on a large survey of the independent production sector; and Making it Real (2021), a policy programme based on the consultation that followed the previous report. You can find both reports in our Resources section.
The DFC was at the heart of the Making it Real policy programme. It has been co-created in collaboration with stakeholders across the sector in recognition of the fact that the problems facing independent documentary require long-term, sector-wide coordination by a national body with the remit and resources to do that work.
In 2022, the AHRC provided a seed-funding grant to support the establishment of the DFC. The grant covered set-up costs in 2023 – including the consultation on the DFC’s governance structure – and supported the DFC’s first two committees, the proposals for which were recommended in the Making it Real policy programme.
Our Partners
Scottish Documentary Institute
Docs Ireland
FWD-Doc
Doc Society
The Guardian Documentaries
Bertha DocHouse
BBC Storyville
Open City Documentary Festival
Ffilm Cymru
The Grierson Trust
International Documentary Association
Documentary Association of Europe
Become
a member
Owned and run by and for its members, the DFC is the first national organisation for the UK’s documentary film industry.
