For decades, the Netherlands produced the best documentaries in the world. However, due to budget cuts in recent years and those coming up, the documentary genre can no longer innovate and renew itself at that high level. Precisely now, as the digital revolution rages, investments are needed to fully utilize the artistic and audience potential of Dutch documentaries.
The Minister writes that the documentary sector is “doing well.” “Where developments proceed naturally, it goes without saying that the government maintains an appropriate distance.” However, the documentary sector is not doing well at all. Budget cuts from recent years have not been reversed, and now the Minister is decimating opportunities for cultural entrepreneurship by blocking access to co-financing by NGOs and the supplementary scheme. At the same time, an investment in Teledoc via the Netherlands Film Fund remains absent. The requested investment in documentaries via the Stimulating Fund for Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Productions also remains missing. The Minister misrepresents the facts in his letter. For this reason alone, the distance the Minister is keeping from Dutch documentaries is inappropriate.
The Documentary Policy Group notes that the gap between professional practice and the government has widened to such an extent that the government's knowledge of the field is limited. Therefore, the Policy Group advocates (in addition to an immediate exemption for documentaries in the new rules for government support for television programmes and the implementation of previously proposed targeted investments in documentary production) for further research into the future of Dutch documentaries.
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