ABSTRACT
This chapter explores three interrelated aspects: how British and German community filmmakers respond to the interplay among professional, artistic and commercial imperatives alongside their core civic function. The aspects also includes: how such community filmmakers respond to systemic pressures; and how they perceive their work following conflicting imperatives and systemic pressures. The chapter specifies how ethnography is deployed as a method of data collection, and discusses the origins and development of community filmmaking in both Britain and Germany based on relevant scholarship and policy discourse. It explains the different imperatives shaping the sector, and then presents community filmmakers' responses to the interaction between the different imperatives and to constraints from subsidy and politics followed by filmmakers' perceptions of their work before providing concluding remarks.
