The documentary field is arguably one of the most vibrant, challenging and creative areas in moving images today. In countries with wellestablished film and television industries, documentary production has been considerably revitalised since the late 1980s. From this period onwards, new distribution opportunities through specialised TV channels and circulation in both international film festivals and theatres have steadily ensured the vitality of both documentary TV programmes and feature-length documentaries. Simultaneously, the globalisation and popularisation of video and digital technologies around the world, and the concomitant development of video practices outside conventional cinema, have transformed the documentary form into a common means of creation and expression. This new surge of interest in documentary practices and forms can be partially explained by easier access not only to cheaper and more user-friendly technology, but also to new distribution platforms, and it has resulted in the emergence of truly innovative documentary movements and breakthroughs by new filmmakers or artists embracing the documentary as an art form, mode of enquiry and work method.

While pursuing our respective research on Indian and Chinese contemporary documentary films, we came to realise that despite local disparities, both countries – and many places around the world – were confronting this general context and the correlated advent of new types of documentaries, which often claim to be ‘independent’ art forms or means of expression. These filmmakers’ work methods and ethics, their modes of organisation and in particular the creation of autonomous structures and documentary events, their difficulties and, at times, their filmic styles gave us enough ground for comparative discussion to conceive of this collection of essays. The ‘independent’ documentary images that we associate with this worldwide phenomenon include the works of filmmakers, artists, activists, journalists, ordinary citizens and anonymous online content, and document all sorts of events, from the genocide in Cambodia to the political dictatorship in Chile, the unrest across the Arab world to the Occupy movements around the globe. However, to our knowledge, academic publications seldom identify significant similarities between heterogeneous documentary practices and forms, which often remain overshadowed by their categorisation in terms of format, medium and terminal (film, video, TV channels, web, mobile and so forth), genres (creative documentary, documentary video art, activist film, citizen reportage, web documentary), subject matter and place of origin.