Reading the docufiction script
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Date
2022
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Publisher
Journal of Screenwriting
Abstract
The ethical issues raised by merging facts and fiction in docufiction screenplays as
a genre suitable for social impact storytelling still linger. Hence, for the intended
message to be effectively passed, the genre, formatting and narrative technique have
to be clearly established for the readership’s consumption. Therefore, this article
will investigate how facts are reinforced by fiction in docufiction. Textual analysis
of Nicodemus Adai Patrick and John Iwuh’s Dissent (2019) is employed in explor ing narrative techniques and formatting as indicators of the proportion of facts
and fiction in a docufiction screenplay. It concludes that docufiction is a deliberate
document with a mission in which the fact supplies the foundation on which fiction
stands. Pre-knowledge of the embedded fact is primal to a deeper appreciation of a
docufiction. It concludes that the readership’s level of comprehension and satisfac tion will be enhanced if the thin line between facts and fiction is spotted.