INPUT / … / … / A lot for less? Part I – Documentaries

Is big investment a sure sign of success? Some of us, in view of economic restraints, have to deal with a precise mandate: the best program with the cheapest budget! Some imply that money is the solution to good programming while others will insist on redefining the traditional structures of resources. Let’s get down to earth... Four programs that get under the skin of their subject without a big budget. ANNIE MAGUIRE comes home after nine years of prison. Annie, her husband, two sons, a brother, a brother-in-law and a friend were all sentenced to a total of 69 years for bombing in London. Were they innocent? A major documentary first aired by Irish television. In POST-NICARAGUA a reporter for VPRO TV in Holland mails a series of video-letters to his station. They are revealing documents of conflict in Central America. The letters, mailed from Costa-Rica, were recorded by a Nicaraguan crew and edited on the spot. Louis Hock, out of curiosity, took up video-taping. THE MEXICAN TAPES is his first video. For three years, the documented his neighbors, a community of outlawed laborers in constant fear of the border patrols. A Turkish immigrant in Holland, undocumented and illegal laborer, is a regular customer at the local Turkish video shop: Turkish adventures, historical dramas are his companions in his daily life of work and family problems. A short drama at the borderline of documentary and fiction.