That is to say the future of docs is online, to look at recent events.  First you have the excellent No End in Sight appearing in its entirety on YouTube, becoming the first wide release to do so (well, with permission).  Then you have Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising premiering as a free download (read his comments on the U.S./Canada exclusivity of that deal) and in one movie theater.  Finally, you have Crawford which, after a festival run, skipped theatrical altogether, premiering on Hulu a few days ago.

And all of these docs are available for free-ninety-nine.

Now, is this a great business model?  Probably not.  It may evolve into one.  And I don’t know that it’s a hundred times worse than the current business model of hope for distribution from one of the few indie divisions that hasn’t shuttered over the past year.

The better question is will this be limited to political docs.  Clearly the intent here is not to make money so much as a statement.  It’s no coincidence that No End in Sight will cease its YouTube run on November 4.

On the other hand, the limited Hulu run of Crawford coincides with its unlimited availability on DVD, so if sales get a bump, who’s to say other genres won’t follow suit?

The Oscar-nominated No End In Sight will be the first widely released feature film to screen in its entirety on YouTube, starting on Sept. 1 and continuing through the 2008 presidential election on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

The film will be featured on its own YouTube channel and available to anyone with a computer and high-speed internet connection.

According to the film’s director, Charles Ferguson, he underwrote the exhibition of the film on YouTube because, “I wanted to make the film, and the facts about the occupation of Iraq, accessible to a larger group of people. My hope is that this will contribute to the process of making better foreign policy decisions moving forward in Iraq and elsewhere.”

Regardless of your political slant, it’s interesting that a studio/filmmaker would take this step to make sure a film is seen.  More than likely, this will be the first of many examples of filmmakers taking product to the web. Groundbreaking.