Between 1940 and 1944 in Germanoccupied France the previously disregarded documentary or film de complment took on a new and more prominent role for cinema audiences. Film programmes were obliged for the first time to show documentaries as well as the main feature. Vichy Government support and encouragement made documentary a vehicle for the palatable promotion of policy whilst ostensibly appearing neutral and didactic. Key to this task was the fostering of a climate in which documentary film could be appreciated in its own right and so it was that special series of high quality documentaries were screened first in Paris and then across France. In 1943 a Governmentsponsored Documentary Film Congress acknowledged that these screenings were au service de la France et du Marchal . This book relates the films to their historical context with reference to other propaganda materials of the period to indicate how this might have been achieved.