Fremantle’s Mandy Chang Warns Against a “Corporate Age” of Documentary as Streamers Fuel Docmaking Boom

In Spring 2022, Mandy Chang, global head of documentaries for entertainment production and distribution company Freemantle, addressed an audience at the Copenhagen Intl. Documentary Film Festival (CPH: DOX). Chang offered a challenge to the notion of a “golden age of documentary,” instead stating that the streaming platforms are privileging true crime, sport, and celebrity-driven stories so that they become mainstream and popular, and that not all documentaries and filmmakers are given such opportunities to reach audiences. Chang pointed to the lack of regulatory action with the streamers, especially with regard to holding rights into perpetuity, as contributing to this inequality, and called for reforms in the industry.