Wide House

Overview

Wide House is a Paris-based international sales agent founded in 2000, specializing in quality documentary films. The company represents documentary features for sale to distributors and broadcasters worldwide, with particular strength in European public broadcaster relationships and in the theatrical documentary market. Wide House is one of the more active documentary-focused sales companies in the Paris market, operating alongside Doc & Film International and Alpha Violet in the documentary sales ecosystem.

The company attends IDFA, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, Sheffield DocFest, Cannes' documentary-adjacent sections, and major markets including AFM and the Marché du Film. Wide House's focus on documentary gives it deep knowledge of the broadcaster licensing market -- a critical revenue stream for documentary features that theatrical-only distributors often underutilize.

Documentary Broadcaster Market

European public broadcasters are among the most important funders and distributors of documentary film globally. Arte (the Franco-German cultural channel), BBC, NDR, ZDF, ORF, SVT, DR, and NRK collectively finance and broadcast hundreds of documentary features per year, providing both production financing (through co-production) and distribution revenue (through licensing fees). Wide House's broadcaster relationships give it the ability to pursue this revenue stream systematically across multiple European territories.

For documentary filmmakers whose subjects have international resonance, broadcaster pre-sales negotiated through Wide House can contribute meaningfully to the film's financing budget before production is complete. This pre-sale financing mechanism is standard practice in the European documentary industry and represents one of the most reliable non-grant financing tools available to documentary producers.

What Filmmakers Should Know

Wide House is relevant for documentary filmmakers whose work has the subject depth, production quality, and narrative ambition that European public broadcasters seek. Arte, the most prestigious co-financier in the European documentary space, favors films that engage seriously with cultural, historical, and social subjects and that meet high cinematic standards.

For filmmakers outside France whose documentary projects could benefit from European broadcaster co-financing, engaging a sales agent with established broadcaster relationships -- such as Wide House -- during the development or early production stage is the standard approach. Cold outreach to broadcasters directly without a sales agent intermediary is rarely effective.

Wide House acquires completed films for sales representation at IDFA, Hot Docs, and other major documentary festivals, and also takes on projects in development for co-production assembly. The company's acquisitions focus on documentary features with strong international subjects, established directors, and the potential for theatrical release alongside broadcaster licensing.

Notable Representations

Wide House has represented documentary features that have screened at major documentary festivals including IDFA, CPH:DOX, and Hot Docs, as well as films broadcast on Arte and other European public channels. The company's catalog reflects a consistent commitment to documentary cinema that engages seriously with its subjects.

See Also

For how broadcaster licensing fits into the documentary distribution strategy alongside theatrical and streaming, see Documentary Financing: Building Your Stack. To model the revenue from European broadcaster licensing combined with theatrical and streaming sales for a documentary, use the Revenue Forecast Calculator.