The subject of Ethics in documentary is a vast and murky one. The issues range from clarifying consent to achieving the right wages for crews – not to mention our new frenemy AI.
As a way to grapple with these challenges, members of the Documentary Producers Alliance created the Ethics Resource Library (ERL). It’s a searchable digital index with 40+ keywords – including authorship, accountability, consent, care & safety – that link to relevant external sources including articles, videos and podcasts.
Spearheading the ERL Working Group were Sarah Rachael Wainio, Dawn Mikkelson, Chantal Encalada, Steffie van Rhee, Risé Sanders-Weir and Simon Mendes. The group began with a list of resources recommended by members and advisors. Over the course of two years, they built a dynamic resource that continues to grow, as they invite new “librarians” from the DPA to contribute resources according to the developed criteria.
Curious to know more, I wrote to the ERL Working Group with questions about their process. They responded collectively with the answers below.
Bella: Describe the core mission of the DPA and recent key activities?
The DPA’s Mission is to amplify the voice of documentary producers worldwide by educating the industry about the essential role that producers play from development through financing, production, and distribution; and by setting standards for inclusive, sustainable, and equitable documentary filmmaking practices based on research, collective experience, and input from industry stakeholders.
We were founded in 2016 to address systemic shortcomings that have led to significant challenges for producers hoping to enjoy a sustainable career. Since that time we have industry standards, starting with our “Guide to Best Practices in Documentary Crediting”, followed by “Guidelines for the Documentary Waterfall”, codifying best documentary investment practices for both investors and filmmakers, the “Anti-Racist and Structural Equality Resource Guide”, the Producing Toward Equity program in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the “Negotiating Contracts for Independent Documentary Producers”, and now the Ethics Resource Library.
The Documentary Producers Alliance celebrates ongoing advocacy work around the inclusion of producer credits in festival publications. With current efforts by lawmakers and the White House to defund public media, the DPA has been working tirelessly for the preservation of public media funding.
Bella: How did the concept of an Ethical Resource Library come about?
While guest lecturing at Fordham University’s Center for Ethics Education Sarah Rachael Wainio was inspired to start what is now the library. Sarah had been collecting important links in a file on her computer: compelling interviews with filmmakers, lists of things to consider before starting production, and other tools and tips she had collected. Sarah - a producer - wanted this informal list of resources to be more organized and shareable. She wanted a place where people could practice thinking about ethics before being faced with decisions in real time.. Since producers are responsible for the care and wellbeing of those in front of and behind the camera, The Documentary Producers Alliance was the perfect organization to steward the library. Arming producers with these resources is a boon to the industry and ethical filmmaking. A diverse working group of “librarians” from the DPA Ethics Subcommittee created a methodology for what resources would be included in the library: key criteria being “will the resource help someone to be more prepared in a moment of decision making?”
Bella: How is the parameter of "Ethics" defined by the DPA and how was this decided?
Ethics are the choices and practices that guide your decision making. And while the DPA is not prescriptive - meaning we don’t seek to answer for you what is ethical, we want to encourage you to make the most ethical choices for you and your film. We are not offering one-size-fits-all answers or offering industry mandates. Our goal is to offer resources to expand and deepen engagement with ethical questions in documentary filmmaking. The library is an entry point for practice, learning and reflection. Every ethical dilemma is unique. The library empowers filmmakers with the tools and context needed to make informed decisions.
Every resource in the library is pre-vetted by the DPA’s Ethics Resource Library Task Force, composed of filmmakers and field experts with diverse lived and professional experiences with a range of cross-cultural professional experiences.
The vetting process is guided by a clear set of criteria, including:
Source credibility (e.g., known ally organizations, esteemed publishers, respected authors)
Date of publication (contemporary or historical relevance)
Relevance to the ethical themes in our library
Relevance to the documentary industry, specifically crew and producer responsibilities
Accessibility (freely available, easy to access)
Practical utility (whether the resource could genuinely help inform an ethical decision)
All resources are peer-reviewed by the team. The review requires a quorum of vetting members (at least four people) be present during the evaluation process. This collaborative review ensures a range of perspectives and reduces bias in the selections.
Bella: Give me an example in which the library could be helpful to a documentary filmmaker?
For example, a filmmaker may be asked by a participant to be paid for their participation in a film project. One could go to the ERL and search by “compensation” or “Participants” and find the ITVS report called “The Filmmaker Participant Relationship Unpacked”, which explores that subject based on a large-scale study of filmmakers and participants around what works and what can be improved as it relates to questions around benefits and risks to sharing personal experiences or perspectives in documentary film and what some projects have done to create a more balanced relationship between filmmaker and participant.
Bella: How do you hope that the resource develops in the future, to function as a "living conversation" between filmmakers?
We hope that the industry utilizes this library extensively, through searching for resources, but also recommending new resources to us through our Suggest a Resource form, so that we can continue to grow and expand the resource. We also have found through our experience releasing the ERL at Tribeca, DC DOX and Bentonville Film Festivals, that the ERL is a great starting point for conversations around specific film projects and ethical conundrums.
Have a lovely holiday weekend!
Bella