* A recent report from org MoveOn projects that 44% of all voters will have seen Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" by the time of the 2004 presidential election, and a third of those will have been self-identified Bush voters.
* McDonald's announced it would eliminate oversized portions a day before the release of "Super Size Me," Morgan Spurlock's nonfiction hit about fast-food corporations and obesity in America.
* After the release of Jehane Noujaim's "The Control Room," Lt. Josh Rushing, a Centcom press officer featured in the doc, was officially sanctioned from discussing the film and will be leaving the military in October.
While there's nothing new about docs effecting social change, their impact has reached unprecedented levels and prompted significant changes within the industry.
The overwhelming success of "Fahrenheit 9/11" has opened up theatrical venues and raised awareness for subsequent docs, says filmmaker Chris Smith, co-director of "The Yes Men," a lighthearted look at anticorporate activism.
Post-"Fahrenheit 9/11" fervor aside, most attribute the new slate of politically focused docs to a heightened sense of political dialogue since the 2000 presidential election and an information void in network news and a lack of alternative points of view.
"Perhaps the greatest legacy of Bush will have been to have gotten people politically involved again," says Michael Shoob, co-director of "Bush's Brain," an expose on Karl Rove, Bush's chief adviser.
"There's a new counterculture revealed through indie docs," says Mark Urman, head of U.S. distribution for Think-Film.
If conservative voices cornered the talk radio market during the Clinton years, progressive voices now may be cornering the indie doc market. David Brock of Media Matters, who is featured in Robert Greenwald's "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" and Harry Thomason's "The Hunting of the President," reports that in the top 45 radio markets, there are 310 hours per day of right-wing talk vs. five hours of liberal talk.
"The media has radically underestimated the public's demand for information," says Greenwald, whose "Outfoxed" examines Fox News' claim of "fair and balanced" journalism. He also helmed "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War."
Not all exposes and call-to-action pieces, the current slate of docs comes in many flavors. Says Alexandra Pelosi of her upcoming HBO doc "Diary of a Political Tourist," which follows Democratic hopefuls on the campaign trail, "It's about the political process itself and what it means to run for president."
"It's rare when a film that sets out to change people's minds succeeds in doing so," says George Butler in reference to his upcoming "Going Upriver: The Long War Journey of John Kerry."
Although the box office success of "Fahrenheit 9/11" has been observed by most as "the perfect storm" unlikely to be repeated any time soon, more docs are getting a theatrical run and performing well by previous standards.
Impact on the industry, however, is not limited to theatrical play. Referring to a recent airing of capital punishment doc "Deadline" on NBC's "Dateline," director Cara Mertes says, "It's the first time we've ever competed with a network for an indie doc." Mertes sees increased opportunities for docs in broadcast and cable.
In likely attempts to exploit the pre-election window, recent releases are breaking traditional rules of distribution, often with surprising rewards. "Outfoxed" sold over 100,000 units on DVD before breaking an all-time record at NYC's Quad Cinema its opening weekend ($24,429). Despite "Deadline's" July broadcast on NBC to an estimated 6 million viewers, co-director Katy Chevigny reports demand from theaters across the country for play-dates this autumn.
Distribution of many of these films through grassroots campaigns and the Internet also has extended some films' reach. "It's like a baton relay race," says Greenwald, whose "Outfoxed" has been used by groups like MoveOn to coordinate 3,700 house parties.
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