Will Writers Strike Benefit Documentary Business?

variety.com:

Addie Morfoot Contributor The breakdown of the Writers Guild of America’s contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers could benefit the documentary industry.

Especially those documentary filmmakers with projects seeking distribution. At least that’s the hope. Like film and television scribes worried about the survival of screenwriting as a viable profession, hundreds of nonfiction filmmakers with independently made docus are grappling with the streamers’ new distribution landscape, which, for the most part, no longer includes acquiring titles that aren’t commissioned.

If the writers strike lasts for several months, the thought is that not only broadcast networks but also streaming companies will begin to face holes in their narrative content, which could, in turn, lead to the purchase of indie docus to fill the void.

At the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto, documentary producers, programmers, and filmmakers are not only celebrating independently made fare but also contemplating the effects the writers strike could have on the nonfiction industry. “The data shows that when there have been writers strikes, or certainly during COVID, we had an uptick in demand for non-fiction programming,” said Geralyn White Dreyfous, co-founder of doc fund Impact Partners. “You combine the media consolidation, along with cutbacks in staffing and budgets, and it still seems pretty tight.