Some documentaries are no longer judged solely on their journalistic or artistic merits. Increasingly, they become high-risk legal and reputational projects, in which editorial decisions are scrutinised in courtrooms, in the media, and on social platforms long after their premiere.
Some documentaries evolve into high-risk legal projects, as evidenced by recent cases – ranging from the conflict over the Sara Omar documentary to TV 2’s The Black Swan (Den sorte svane) series, and followed by a recent debate over editorial balance and ethics surrounding DR’s series The Oligarch and the Art Dealer (Velkommen til Pengeland).
A few years ago, Sabaya, funded by the Swedish Film Institute and Nordic broadcasters, was initially acclaimed for documenting the rescue of Yazidi women enslaved by ISIS. After the premiere, controversy emerged over several issues, including whether vulnerable participants gave fully informed consent.
Earlier cases include the Dole Food Company’s suit against Swedish director Fredrik Gertten, producer Margarete Jangård and WG Film for the film Bananas! The lawsuit sparked an international debate about corporate pressure on journalists and filmmakers. Facing public backlash— particularly in Sweden — Dole withdrew the lawsuit in October 2009, although it maintained that the film contained false statements.
True story productions seem no longer primarily evaluated for their journalistic or artistic quality, but frequently face post-premiere scrutiny of their legal robustness, documentation, and handling of participants. Documentary producers risk difficult situations in which they, as small companies with limited resources, face big firms with an army of lawyers.
“The Black Swan and the legal process around the Sara Omar documentary are some of the recent cases, where it is obvious that the way documentary makers have to handle high-risk legal productions has changed,” according to Ove Rishøj Jensen, Documentary Advisor at Nordisk Film & TV Fond.
The cases fall in various categories. There is a difference between what is ”the truth” in the case of The Black Swan and the ethical discussions about filmmaker and character relations surrounding the Sara Omar legal case. However, there is a common denominator: a struggle over who gets to define reality in the public sphere: investigative journalists and documentary makers claiming to expose hidden truths, versus subjects who argue that the exposure is inaccurate, unbalanced, or ethically flawed — and the resulting battle over credibility, reputation, and freedom of expression.
“Most of the cases are based on complications in documenting “the truth”, as the different sides of the story have different subjective experiences of reality. Dealing with these challenges have shifted, driven by the increasing opportunity for characters and subjects in documentaries to answer back or initiate their own contrasting narratives via social media and the press,” Jensen said.
In the spring of 2026, Andreas Dalsgaard and Elk Film’s docuseries The Oligarch and the Art Dealer, a riveting look at how art money flows around the world in opaque ways, came under fire primarily for editorial balance and fairness, rather than factual errors. The series featured extensive on-camera interviews with the Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier.
Today, the experience does not lead Dalsgaard to predict a more fearful production environment. “I believe that journalistic thoroughness, fact-checking, and decency pay off, and when they underlie journalistic work, you can handle most challenges.”
However, Dalsgaard recognises that these days it takes superhuman courage, willingness to take risks, and a devil-may-care attitude to be a producer, and not for the faint-hearted. “Luckily, we have many producers who possess the madness required,” he adds.
Anna Weitz, documentary advisor at the Swedish Film Institute, emphasises that if documentaries are to depict society and people in all their complexity, there must be room to take risks.
“This is especially true for films that examine power, expose misconduct, or portray environments where laws, ethics, and reality collide,” she told NFTVF.
Yet documentary filmmakers must also confront dilemmas. Reality is often interpreted differently by different people. In the case of The Black Swan, the filmmakers faced the challenge of determining and documenting what constituted "the truth”, as the people involved appeared to be engaged in multiple layers of deception, making it difficult to distinguish who was manipulating whom.
”The shift in handling high-risk legal productions has changed; it is no longer about the narrative created in the film itself, but also very much about the narratives generated around the documentaries. Increasingly, filmmakers do not have to relate to their own film only, but also to the stories told about and narratives created around the films they make,” Jensen said.
He suggests that the production industry builds a stronger awareness of how characters, companies and other parties may potentially create counter-narratives to a documentary.
No one questions that documentaries play an important democratic role by exposing the consequences of, for example, existing systems and challenging laws, according to the Swedish Film Institute. But Anna Weitz takes the argument one step further:
“Artistic freedom also comes with responsibility. In some projects, legal expertise becomes crucial — both to understand the limits of what can be said under freedom of expression and to ensure participants aren’t put at additional risk by the film. Sometimes situations also come up where a filmmaker thinks it would be ethically wrong not to step in to help a participant, and then guidance on both legislation and risk assessment is often needed,” Weitz said.
Jensen’s key takeaway for the industry is this: Following recent cases, broadcasters and other publishers now approach high-risk productions differently. As a result, strategies for handling press and social media discussions become more integrated in the release plans and strategies. It is no longer enough to control your documentary film; producers must be aware of who will control the narrative around it once it is released.
“Now, publishers expect that some documentaries will very likely cause alternative social media and press narratives. This makes them much more careful with their demands for documentation and fact-checking around the productions,” Jensen said.
Following his legal battles and conflict, Dalsgaard expects changes at media companies:
"The bigger the company, the less risk-taking by producers. The risk of being sued increases the more money the companies represent, and big companies have more resources to secure the legal assistance required to protect themselves."
As American streamers may hesitate faced with politically controversial content, pubcasters remain crucial for ensuring critical journalism.
"In fact, DR fully supported Elk Film in the process of The Oligarch and the Art Dealer, and helped ensure very thorough fact-checking and compliance with ethical guidelines. This required great courage," Dalsgaard said.
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