Introduction—Volume 2: Documentary Film Festivals: Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives

This introduction provides an overview of key concerns and concepts discussed in this book, which looks at recent changes in organization and programming policies at documentary festivals, with a special focus on production and distribution. Firstly, we articulate a definition of the documentary festival. Drawing concepts developed by Bill Nichols, we elaborate on the discussion started in the introduction of our first volume (where we look at epistemological, socio-political and aesthetic components of this definition). Here we focus on the institutional framework, understanding documentary festivals as spaces of interaction of the main agents involved in this field. Secondly, we summarise the contents of the two sections of this volume, the first of which is devoted to academic analysis of recent trends in the documentary festival circuit, and the second to insider accounts of professionals working in the field.