On Hot Docs’ 10th anniversary, the festival’s founder, the Canadian Independent Film Caucus, itself celebrating a 20th birthday, is rebranding itself as the Documentary Organization of Canada.

The CIFC originally launched with just a handful of Toronto filmmakers and today represents nearly 600 directors, producers and craftspeople in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Toronto and British Columbia and still appoints half of the Hot Docs board. Sandy Crawley, executive director of DOC, explains that the name change is to ensure there will be no mistaking the association’s relation to the doc form, although he acknowledges that some of his members work outside of docs.

Crawley sees DOC’s priority as a lobbying group as convincing the public and private sectors that docs are not only industrial series about furry animals, and ‘to invest in and produce the documentaries that really do represent our cultural heritage, which is the feature-length documentary – in-depth coverage of a subject from the passionate point of view of a filmmaker or a team of filmmakers or producers.’

DOC’s other big challenge is human resources, and it has been developing ongoing professional programs with the B.C. and Ontario governments to provide training – which it subsidizes for members – for people entering the market.

The landscape has changed dramatically in the CIFC/DOC’s lifespan.

‘Twenty years ago, it was a real struggle to be a documentary filmmaker – now there is an explosion in the demand for documentary,’ Crawley says. He points to research DOC has recently commissioned with help from the National Film Board and CBC that points to a $464-million investment in domestic doc production last year, $315 million of that in the independent sector, up significantly from previous years.

Yet Crawley recognizes a crisis for his membership akin to that in the world of drama. It’s hard to keep production values up when a growing number of docs being produced are vying for a piece of the same financing pie – one that is shrinking based on recent developments with the CTF. This will make it hard to follow up the runaway success of Bowling for Columbine with more breakthrough docs that could appeal to a mass theatrical audience and secure foreign sales.

‘[Doc-makers] used to get $1-million and $2-million budgets, and fairly regularly budgets over half a million dollars… That’s been depressed through this explosion. People now almost never get $400,000,’ Crawley says.

DOC is hosting a couple of events at Hot Docs, including a party May 1 at Schmooze in part to celebrate the screening of Albert Nerenberg’s Stupidity. DOC will also be releasing a booklet tracing its history, including a look to the future from national chair Andrea Nemtin.

Crawley’s father, F.R. Crawley, was a pioneer Canadian filmmaker who produced the Academy Award-winning The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975). After a career as a TV actor, the younger Crawley headed up ACTRA for seven years, continuing on in the area of cultural politics.

Becoming a DOC member begins with either a phone call or a visit to the organization’s website.

-www.cifc.ca