A little late, but my contribution to the best docs of the year. My criteria are films seen in festivals, the cinema or online premieres, with one exception.

1 Burma VJ  Unquestionably the best film for me – compassionate, imaginative, thrilling, important.

2 Videocracy  Running a close second, the film I’ve been waiting to see about Berlusconi. Exciting, innovative and very scary.

3  Rough Aunties  A master class in empathetic film-making; how to win the trust of contributors to tell their extraordinary story both to us, and to each other.

4 Sleep Furiously  Beautiful poetic filmaking in rural Wales; the kind you think didn’t they made any more.

5 Modern Life  Rural France this time, with characters that get under your skin and stay there. See it now on joiningthedocs.tv

6 Anvil  Friendship and belief against the odds – funny and touching.

7 Mugabe and the White African  Extraordinary story of fortitude and courage.

8 End Of The Line  The best eco film of the year, with brilliant strategic partnering, marketing and (mostly) distribution

9 The Unmistaken Child aka The Baby and the Buddah.  Actually seen on Storyville, a film that captures an unbelivable tale and unearths some of the mysteries of Buddhism.

10 Afghan Star  Great story that hit its moment and travelled the world with a tale of optimism in a country where we hear of little.

I was watching the Japanese film Departures yesterday, thanks to a free pass from The Auteurs, one of the film on demand services that launched this year, alongside our own joiningthedocs. The film’s had generally great press, was Oscar nominated, and has more than 80% critic approval on rottentomatoes .  The opening sequence is brilliant – witty, intriguing, precise, in the manner of many Japanese art movies. Then Time Out dropped through my letter box. Departures has only two stars.  

I had hit the end of act one, twenty minutes in – and the film had slowed,and seemed to be taking on a more predictable shape. The review had alerted me to its perceived superficiality, predictability and mawkishness. I started to lose interest. I switched away, and didn’t come back.

This alerted me to the cold fact that my engagement with films online has become more judgemental. If I had watched on a DVD, I would have scrolled though, and spotted on interesting scenes. If I was in the cinema, I maybe would have stayed at least another 20 minutes, deferred judgement – and I may still have walked out. So what’s the issue with watching it online? it was free, so I felt no loss of investment when I switched off. But I also had the opportunity to leave at anytime, and the lack of a hard disc, whether bought, rented or borrowed, meant I felt much less of a sense of a contract to watch it.

So what does this mean for any of us trying to run an online business? do we not value free content as much as paid? I hear from some users of Snag film that they quit when they hit the first ad insertion.  If I had paid for this film would I have felt like The Auteurs is offering a poorer service because of my lack of enjoyment? Do we need to get everyone behind a subscriber wall as quickly as possible, so we have their money whatever and for however long they watch? 

Is the real lesson that we now accept that we all have more and more short, serendipitous encounters? We are all becoming broader in our tastes, but shallower in our understanding. It may be that this isn’t a barrier to paid content, but it’s probably not good news for the film-maker.