In an interview with Cause Global’s Marcia Stepanek, Cara Mertes, director of the Sundance documentary film program, says that “self-designated storytelling” by amateur filmmakers stepping in to fill the void left by a weakening of mainstream production.

Excerpts from the interview:

What is the climate for documentary film in today’s world?

Right now, in this moment, one of the most exciting things is that documentary film has become a kind of international language. I talk about it as being the lingua franca of the issues: it is much less expensive than feature film. You can make a documentary virtually alone, and there are a lot of these kinds of self-designated storytellers in documentary now.

Eric Daniel Metzgar, who made Reporter [which debuted at Sundance in January], was one man going. He didn’t even bring a camera person or a sound person. He went with his camera and accompanied Nick Kristof and made the story out of that. So it’s very much an under-the-radar approach to becoming a filmmaker. As I travel around the world, I come across this again and gain—people saying, This is the way I want to tell my story in the world. We see in the West, particularly, an erosion of independent journalism; journalism isn’t filling that gap anymore and so we have documentary filmmakers stepping up and saying, like Eric did, I want to know about the Congo and so I guess I’ll go there and make a film about it.

So it’s a combination of globalization and journalism-in-turmoil?

Particularly in the United States, “international” has never been a priority; as we become more linked globally, suddenly that linkage is very apparent to people. Every morning, you can wake up now and hear about the stock markets around the world. A year ago, we were not hearing about that as much; now we do hear it—we see it now like the weather. It’s embedded in people’s consciousness now that we are interdependent and that is creating a demand for stories that can help us understand what that interdependency means. What are the conflicts? What are the things that are creating an interruption to what we might call a more just society? This transcends politics. Ever since 9/11, we have begun to understand that something could happen to us and we all want to be a little bit more prepared. Documentary is a kind of wake-up call for people; people have a hunger now for knowledge that can help them make better decisions as they move through life.

How are social media influencing documentary filmmaking?

There are many different kinds of storytelling strategies we’re seeing deployed now. We’re seeing more and more Flip cameras, and certainly, cell phones are starting to be used to capture content. I don’t think we’re seeing short docs on cell phones—yet. You can’t really edit on a cell phone yet, but you will be able to. We’re going to see yet another transformation [in the evolution of documentary film], I think, and the types of people deciding they want to use visual storytelling will continue to expand. It is an incredibly exciting moment because we’re now seeing a huge range of new participation—you know, the 10-year-old is making documentaries now along with the 45-year-old Oscar-winning documentary maker. The two may seem very far apart but the linkage is that people are using nonfiction storytelling as a way to express themselves. And one might be considered amateur and one is considered a professional—and it’s apples and oranges —but in terms of the desire to explain the world, it’s exactly the same.”