The UK’s Documentary Film Council (DFC) has elected its first national board of representatives, which includes execs such as Storyville lead commissioner Emma Hindley, Doc Society co-director Sandra Whipham and filmmakers Jessi Gutch and Andy Mundy-Castle.
The DFC was set up last summer just prior to Sheffield DocFest to lobby for the sector and to highlight challenges facing UK documentary.
The DFC is a co-operative that is owned and run by its membership which comprises 706 people across three tiers (supporter, ally, member). Of these, 264 are voting members.
The election was announced in March and closed on May 31, with 31 candidates putting themselves forward for eight seats available on the board.
The trustees for 2024-2025 are:
- Olu Adaeze (independent director/producer, Ikenga Creative Lab)
- Flore Cosquer (Scottish Documentary Institute)
- Fiona Fletcher (British Council)
- Roisín Geraghty (independent producer/head of industry & marketplace, Docs Ireland)
- Jessi Gutch (independent filmmaker, Fig Films)
- Emma Hindley (BBC Storyville)
- Andy Mundy-Castle (independent filmmaker, Doc Hearts Limited)
- Sandra Whipham (Doc Society)
The trustees will formally take over from the interim board at DocFest at the DFC’s annual Open Assembly and AGM on June 15.
An ex officio seat on the board is also reserved for the CEO, a role temporarily held by two volunteers - Emily Copley and Steve Presence.
Andy Mundy-Castle, whose film White Nanny Black Child won a Bafta in February, said: “At a time when the independent documentary community faces grave challenges industry wide, it is vitally important to have a council that represents our overlooked and marginalised community. It is a great honour to be elected to a historic board of trustees and I look forward to pushing our collective agenda forward.”
In October 2023 over 500 filmmakers and executives signed an open letter drafted by the DFC’s interim board calling for ‘urgent, coordinated interventions across the sector’ amid an ‘‘existential threat’ to indie doc sector.
The challenges have been compounded this year by the closure of Participant Media, the US studio responsible for titles from An Inconvenient Truth (2006) to All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022). Hot Docs, Canada’s leading documentary festivals and one of the largest in the world, has also been hit by mass resignations.
In the UK, the DFC itself has struggled to find financial support for its work. Seed funded in 2023 with a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the DFC has so far failed to secure funding and is currently run by volunteers.
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