Children’s documentaries: distance and ethics in European storytelling about the wider world

ABSTRACT The material challenges of funding, commissioning and distribution that are well known to inhibit production of children’s factual content about other countries and cultures operate in parallel with challenges arising from the moral responsibilities inherent in what Roger Silverstone called “the problem of proper distance”. By that he signified a “moral category” requiring filmmakers to provide “context as well as imagination” and be willing to “recognise the other in her sameness and difference”. “Distance” and “difference” have become at once more significant but also more ambiguous at a time of mass forced migration, in which traditions, religions and cultures from distant places are brought together in physical proximity. Based on input from cross-cultural dialogues, screenings and interviews involving European producers of children’s documentaries, this article explores dilemmas and experiences faced in representing the backgrounds and stories of children who arrived in Europe from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the mid-2010s. It shows the resonance of Silverstone’s thinking by revealing that many practitioners themselves apply notions of closeness and distance, both physically and metaphorically, in their choices about combining the familiar and unfamiliar and co-creating content with child participants. IMPACT SUMMARY a. Prior State of Knowledge: Existing power imbalances between filmmaker and subject/participant are accentuated when documentaries are made about vulnerable children. Studies have pinpointed competing pressures to tell a compelling story, respect privacy and provide background, while avoiding exoticism, didacticism and cultural preconceptions. b. Novel Contributions: Practitioners’ spontaneous references to “distance” when discussing their filming of refugee children demonstrate that Silverstone’s concept of “proper distance” as a “moral category” can be operationalised in co-creating content with documentary participants and evaluating the merits of such documentaries. c. Practical Implications: Creatives and commissioning editors responsible for children’s factual content about other cultures can use the findings to calibrate how they convey children’s “sameness” and “difference” with empathy and respect. Such content’s relevance for promoting social cohesion also matters to policymakers.