EXCLUSIVE: Storyville is moving into shorts.
The storied BBC documentary strand will begin making premium short docs alongside features for the first time, coming as the corporation both grapples with YouTube and attempts to leverage its power.
Just revealed on stage at Sheffield DocFest, Storyville boss Nevine Mabro issued a call for “bold, innovative filmmakers to create compelling 10 to 40-minute films that explore the issues shaping our world for BBC Four and BBC iPlayer,” which she hopes will “shape the next generation of documentary filmmakers.”
Mabro added: “Short-form storytelling offers greater agility in responding to cultural, political and social events, and as demand for shorts continues to grow, it creates new opportunities for filmmakers to tell untold stories. The shorts will give our audience a wider choice of films on our platform, as well as bring new audiences to the world class filmmaking on Storyville.”
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Storyville has been making and co-producing docs for nearly 30 years now including multiple award-winners, most recently Oscar winner Mr Nobody Against Putin and Black Box Diaries, which was nominated for an Oscar.
The news comes with the BBC recently agreeing a deal to make shows for YouTube for the first time, which includes documentary channels like BBC3’s Deepwatch (working title), featuring new and existing docs.
Sheffield DocFest is running all this week and BBC commissioners are out in force. We revealed earlier a new doc feature about British wrestling legend Shirley Crabtree launching at the fest.