BAFTA winner, revenue earner and herald of a new dawn for documentary, 'Touching the Void' is one of the most successful British cinema documentaries ever made. But who really made all the money, and how difficult was it for a television producer to step into the big bad world of film? In conversation with David Aukin, who is an undisputed expert on British cinema, producer John Smithson tells the inside story - the deals, the money, the true profits - and together they judge whether the film marks the beginning of a new era, or a false dawn. 

Adam Curtis is one of the few documentary makers whose every project attracts attention from far outside the documentary community. In recent years he has taken to huge subjects such as why and how we went to war on terror with 'The Power of Nightmares' and investigated the power of small elites in British society in 'The Mayfair Set'. His films are characterised by an explicit and strong argument allied with an imaginative use of archive to prove his point - demonstrated powerfully in his series 'The Trap'.