11/05/2011

Following on from the nuclear crisis in Japan, European sales companies are seeing an increased demand for films dealing with environmental issues and global politics. The German company united docs, for example, has seen great interest in the three domestic documentaries – Inge Altemeier’s Fashion Victims and The Asbestos Connection, and Tilman Achtnich’s Cloning Food – ahead of the Marche du Film, where the number of documentaries taking part this year is up from 400 to 500.

“A shift in attitudes has taken place, particularly on environmental and consumer issues,” says Anne Hufnagel, head of united docs Cologne. “Journalistic documentaries about complex global interconnections, issues or current events which impact our quality of life are gaining in importance all the time.”

The documentary Fashion Victims goes on the trail of questionable chemicals in textiles and shoes. A huge proportion of the clothing sold in Europe comes from Asia and contains substances which are banned here.

The Asbestos Connection takes the viewer from Canada through China and onto Europe. Even though the lethal mineral has been banned here for more than a decade, there is an exemption available for the importation and trade in Canadian asbestos. In China too, asbestos is still used in products such as thermos flasks and sealing rings, which are then exported around the world.

Cloning Food looks into the red-hot question as to whether it is at all possible to control the transatlantic trade in cloned calves and cloned meat. In the international meat trade it is impossible to restrict cloned animals to one country or even one continent – particularly when they are not labelled. When importing to Europe, not even the experts can determine whether the meat is sourced from the offspring of cloned animals.

United docs was acquired by Bavaria Media in January.