When films first became popular across the world it was because people loved being able to escape reality for a few hours and enter into another world. This was the time between the Great Wars when much of the country was in the Depression. Now, while we can still find many films that will take us away from working on class action suits in Canada or from issues at home, there are also film choices that focus on elements of reality. These are called documentaries and they come in many shapes and forms.

With a documentary there is one topic that the filmmaker is focusing one and following. They might be talking about the healthcare system in North America and compare getting dental implants Mississauga is offering and those in Miami. Or, it could be historical and show you the story of a famous person or event that happened hundreds of years ago. The point of a documentary is that it is not acted but is telling a true story through film. There is usually no script and it is up to the director to put all of the scenes together at the end.

The earliest films in the world were technically documentaries, as they captured true events. When the creators of video cameras started filming they showed things like a train coming through a tunnel. There are also many examples throughout history of using documentaries for political and social purposes. While today you might see a film that shows a London Ontario animal hospital to raise awareness for issues dealing with animal cruelty, back in the 1940s you would have seen all kinds of propaganda films related to the war. There were varying levels of truth to these films.

Documentaries are now making their way to television in the form of reality shows. Some of these will tell the story of a family who are able to start a home based business while raising lots of kids while others are about groups of friends all living in one house over the summer. While some people might not put these in the same category as the kinds of documentaries that open our eyes to international issues, they are technically the same genre.

Documentary films have actually risen in the public eye over the last decade as well. Now, we have people making films about street artists rather than those that make modern canvas art and those that are related to some of the most controversial topics that people are talking about around the world today. No matter what your interests might be, there is likely a documentary out there that has something to say about it.