12 April 2011 Last updated at 10:33

Let Me Tell You A Story

By Claire Barrett Reporter, Ariel

Charlotte Moore

Suddenly, documentaries are cool. Suddenly, they're smash hits. Suddenly, Charlotte Moore can rejoice. These days the commissioning editor for documentaries is more likely to be collecting gongs (BBC docs swept the board at last month's RTS awards) and revelling in record viewing (The Adult Season brought BBC Three the highest rating fortnight in its history) than sitting on panels discussing whether documentary is dead.

The future looks bright, too, with younger viewers developing an appetite for real life stories - the popularity of Junior Doctors a case in point - that Hello magazine-style tv had done its best to suppress.

'Documentaries were seen as quite traditional, quite old fashioned, quite worthy,' admits Moore. 'But we've been on an interesting journey and the filmmaking community is very much alive. Lots of people out there are making some extraordinary films.'

BBC Two's Welcome to Lagos is one. It made slums, squatters and scavengers feel at home on primetime, where Africa and poverty had become dirty words. 'It's all about an attitude,' insists Moore, 'and finding a way of bringing those places to life.'

Andrew Tait's Leaving Amish Paradise is another. Catching up with two families struggling with life away from their reclusive community, the one-off film, which wasn't marketed, got picked up by reviewers and pulled in 2.6m on the same night that Jamie's Dream School - fronted by a massive star and packed with celebrities - attracted 2.02m viewers.

It has to feel relevant

It's this revival of observational documentary - a reflection of the times we live in - that excites Moore. 'Audiences are interested in the real stories, experiences, dilemmas and issues confronting us in 2011. It has to feel relevant to them, but what's relevant is a broader canvas now,' she reflects.

Take C4's Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, the audience for which swelled to a phenomenal 8.7m, propelling it into the channel's top ten highest-rating programmes ever. 'I don't think anybody realised there was an audience that large for documentary,' admits Moore, who recently commissioned A Hasidic Guide to Love Marriage and Finding a Bride.

She's not about to let this 'moment' pass by unheralded. On Thursday she has invited the documentary-making community - or as many of them as will fit in Notting Hill's Tabernacle - for an evening celebrating the craft.

Oscar-winning Kevin Macdonald, described by Moore as 'one of the greatest storytellers in the UK', will give the inaugural lecture. His Life in a Day project combined Youtube footage of people's lives on a day last July into a film that was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and he'll talk about both documentary heritage and what smaller, cheaper technology means for the authorship in the future.

'I want to take a step back from the films we're all working on to look at where we've come from and where we're going,' says Moore.

Moore, whose own filmmaking exploits brought her into contact with people living with cancer ('One 15-year-old refused chemotherapy to prolong his life') and even cannibals ('I speak Indonesian and met tribes who said they'd eaten human beings'), commissions more than 220 hours of output across the channels from indies and in-house teams in London, Wales, Bristol, Scotland and Birmingham.

She seeks pitches that 'speak to now'. 'It's not always about the subject matter,' she clarifies, 'but about the approach, the attitude, the sense of purpose.'

If ob-docs are her passion, Moore is not averse to a smart format. 'But if a format looks derivative, packaged and predictable, audiences switch off,' she reasons.

Last week's Lambing Live made a tv event - and something to contemplate - from the birth of sheep, while The Choir, commissioned for a fourth series, spills out of its format to become 'real life'.

'It's what Gareth Malone manages to bring out of people, not just for telly but in real life, that's extraordinary.'

Provocative subjects

She numbers Malone among the newer breed of presenters - alongside Louis Theroux, Bruce Parry, Neil Morrissey - with whom viewers wish to 'go on a journey, whether it's trying to bring communities together through singing or exploring the Arctic and the issues around it'.

There will be more presenter-led fare among the output Moore will unveil on Thursday. Expect more documentaries, too, that delve into provocative subjects and unpack them for the audience.

'There have never been so many platforms for documentary, for so many different audiences, with so many different voices,' she enthuses. 'It's a real moment and it's growing.'