What is "docudrama"

docudrama \docudrama\ n. a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event.

Syn: documentary, documentary film, infotainment.

n. A type of drama (a film, a television show, or a play) that combines elements of documentary and drama, to some extent showing real events and to some extent using actors performing recreations of documented events.

n. a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event [syn: documentary, documentary film, infotainment]

A docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of radio and television programming, feature film, and staged theatre, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. On stage, it is sometimes known as documentary theatre.

In the core elements of its story a docudrama strives to adhere to known historical facts, while allowing a greater or lesser degree of dramatic license in peripheral details, and where there are gaps in the historical record. Dialogue may include the actual words of real-life persons, as recorded in historical documents. Docudrama producers sometimes choose to film their reconstructed events in the actual locations in which the historical events occurred.

A docudrama, in which historical fidelity is the keynote, is generally distinguished from a film merely " based on true events", a term which implies a greater degree of dramatic license; and from the concept of " historical drama", a broader category which may also encompass largely fictionalized action taking place in historical settings or against the backdrop of historical events.

As a portmanteau, docudrama is sometimes confused with docufiction. However, unlike docufiction—which is essentially a documentary filmed in real time, incorporating some fictional elements—docudrama is filmed at a time subsequent to the events portrayed.