mumbai when calamity strikes can an avalanche of documentaries be far behind evidently not in this hyper new digital world a handycam and some spare change can a docu make as shown by the recent spate that just one state gujarat has inspiredat present and counting there are at least nine docus on the narmada issue five on the earthquake and 15 on last years communal riotswhile ahmedabadbased documaker k stalin describes this flood as disaster tourismwhere filmmakers of every stripe show up shoot and vamoose veteran filmmaker saeed mirza is more charitable some may be like vultures but such efforts show that people are concernedthe docu rush was nourished by the digital revolution which like the internet has empowered the alternative voice once a prisoner of capital film has now been democratised declares filmmaker rakesh sharma a tape costs just rs 160 we dont have to beg doordarshan or a rich ngo for money for my gujarat film i didnt even bother to raise moneyfilmmaking is losing its halo says documaker madhushree dutta today you dont even have to be a filmmaker because digital technology is so user friendlybut while filmmaking just got cheaper distribution remains a roadblockthe alternative voices audience is usually limited to activist groups colleges and film festivals and while this viewership is not insignificant doesnt it amount to preaching to the converted thats the problem with the secular movement admits suma josson who recently made gujarat a laboratoryweve never gone beyond while hindutva has managed to do soone major problem says mr sharma is that documentaries are still thought of as badly made blackandwhite films which exhibitors are loath to touch things are different abroad he says for example michael moores bowling for columbine about the us gun culture was released throughout the us and europe to great successmr stalin feels the solution lies in creating audiences i put as much energy into distributing my films as in making them for example we take our films to villages he saysperhaps the more important question now is whether the digital revolution has taken the genre forward ms dutta feels that many of the news films are more reportage than filmmakingthere is a difference between political and quickie films she says a film like anand patwardhans war and peace on nuclear india still takes a lot of time and moneythe quickie film has led to a hitandrun style the explosion of filmmaking is a good sign says stalin but many filmmakers vanish after the shooting and never return to screen their films in the villages where they shot themms dutta is more concerned about the fact that filmmakers are not reinventing themselves in response to the satellite tv boomnonfiction channels like discovery and bbc have opened up a mainstream space for docus while welcoming this ms dutta says it has led to commodificationdocus were supposed to break the norms of mainstream storytelling instead another norm has been imposed discovery will only take a discovery kind of film