''We live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious President. We live in a time where we have a ...
''We live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious President. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons… Shame on you, Mr Bush, shame on you.’' - Michael Moore
Mockumentary (also known as mock documentary) is a genre of film and television in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself.[1] They may be either comedic or dramatic in form, although comedic mockumentaries are more common. A dramatic mockumentary should not be confused with docudrama, a genre in which documentary and dramatic techniques are combined to depict real events.
Mockumentaries share much with the documentary genre:
They use the same codes and conventions as documentary, such as an authoritative narrator, 'real’ footage of events, archival photographs, interviews with apparent 'experts’ and 'eyewitnesses’, and so on.
Mock-documentaries 'work’ because of the assumptions and expectations that we have of documentary. When we see a text that looks and sounds real, we tend to naturally believe it.
Classic Mockumentaries:
This is Spinal Tap – Rob Reiner (1984) – Spinal Tap, the world’s loudest band, is chronicled by hack documentarian Marti DeBergi on what proves to be a fateful tour.
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, 1988 – A documentary detailing the spread of Hawaiian sugar-cane toads through Australia in a botched effort to introduce them as counter pests.
Big Dreamers (2007) Big Dreamers is a hilarious comedic feature documentary following the Herculean efforts of Ron Hunt as he struggles and strives to build the world’s biggest gumboot as a tourist icon for the tiny township of Tully, Far North Queensland. The maze of financial hurdles, engineering difficulties and metres and metres of red tape is no match for this heroic visionary, who faces more perilous confrontations as he scales the rocky heights of small-town diplomacy.
Exit Through the Gift Store (2010) – Reality … or Not? – You Decide! The story of how an eccentric French shop keeper and amateur film maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy.
Czech Dream (2004) – Two students from the Czech Film Academy commission a leading advertising agency to organize a huge campaign for the opening of a new supermarket named Czech Dream.
We Can Be Heroes – The internationally acclaimed hit comedy series created and written by Chris Lilley. This ground breaking mockumentary follows the daily lives of five very special individuals who are among the thousands of citizens nominated for the prestigious title of Australian of the Year. As portrayed by Lilley, the five nominees are from different parts of the country and represent the full spectrum of Australian society: young and old, male and female, urban and rural; native and emigrant.
Orson Welles’s 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds
Borat as well was a success, though writer and star Sacha Baron Cohen received much criticism for his alleged racism and disparagement of the Kazakh people
The 2003 cult classic film Muffin Man is a mockumentary about the downfall and extinction of the human species due to a rampant obesity epidemic.
For a full list of Classic Mockumentaries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mockumentaries
