Foreign documentaries can help us think about people who are living in places outside of where we live and different perspectives on global issues. We can come to see how the lives of people who live in other countries differ from ours and the things that we have in common. Maybe, we realize after a while that there are not as many differences between us as we once thought....

There is never a shortage of good foreign docs to go around, but many Americans risk going through life without ever getting to see one. According to an Indiewire article, there is a perception that American audiences won’t appreciate them, either because fiction films with big celebrities that can provide an escape from people’s day-to-day realities appeal more to mainstream American tastes, or because of the perception that subtitles take away from the visual appeal of a documentary. As a result, few foreign films get distributed or funded in the U.S., which is too bad because there are a great number of beautiful foreign films out there on issues that are important to share with an American audience.

A couple of things struck us about this dilemma. Could non-traditional distribution help get foreign docs in front of American audiences who should see them? As social media becomes a primary way of getting international news, maybe it’s a place where filmmakers can begin building international engagement with their docs, too. (Of course, if you asked us, we’d recommend getting that started early in the filmmaking process.) This also got us thinking about the subtitle issue. Online, most of us have become pretty used to watching videos with subtitles, so much so that at Kindling, we try as often as possible to burn subtitles into the content we create for social media - the sound is usually muted as you scroll through your feed anyways. And perhaps even thinking beyond feature docs — would foreign digital-first projects have as much trouble finding an American audience as traditional docs, if the team was sure to target one?

What do you think? We’re curious about how to better facilitate international conversations in the doc film world.