Mark Saunders obituary

My husband, Mark Saunders, who has died aged 68, was an independent film-maker, engaged in participatory media practices since the early 1980s. In 1982 he founded the media co-operative Despite TV and in 1990 Spectacle Productions, a TV production company specialising in documentary and community-led investigative journalism on topics such as the struggle for housing, urban development, human rights and social justice. Despite TV emerged after the creation of Channel 4, which gave professional film-making equipment to community groups. Making use of this new, more accessible video technology, Despite TV produced regular video magazines on local London issues, and longer films focusing on subjects such as the Wapping dispute (Despite the Sun, 1986), the London Docklands Development Corporation’s takeover of the old docks (Despite the City, 1988) and the poll tax riots (The Battle of Trafalgar, 1990, broadcast on Channel 4). These highlight Mark’s most innovative technique – a community group video diary, based around an event, forensically analysed and edited to draw out deeper context. Combining interviews and footage from other sources, amateur film-makers trained by Mark captured a huge amount of data from every angle. Mark collaborated with communities, educational institutions, NGOs, local councils and cultural institutions, and gave participants the tools to speak for themselves. Interested in the effects of German reunification, he established the media collective Jakow Videocoopin 1991 in the former East German city of Rostock, to produce The Truth Lies in Rostock for Channel 4. From 1994, he worked with residents of Marsh Farm in Luton, on three films about the transformational power of community-centred activities, the third of which, Exodus from Babylon (1997), was broadcast on Channel 4. In 2000 Mark formed a video group on the Silwood estate in Rotherhithe, south London, which captured more than 350 hours of footage over 20 years. Some of the groups he established remained active for many years, thus allowing hundreds of participants from diverse backgrounds and of different ages to contribute. He had plans to develop an “active archive” of his work and a home is being sought for his collection. Born in Plaistow, east London, to Thomas Saunders, an architect, and Betty McCrea (nee Mermod), Mark grew up in Upminster and went to Hornchurch grammar school. He graduated with a degree in film, television and photography from the London College of Printing, and then a master’s in screenwriting from the University of the Arts London. He and I met briefly in Latvia in 2000, while he was attending a film-makers’ meeting, and again in Canada in 2002, when Mark was a keynote speaker at Concordia University, where I was an MA student. He always said that we would have met a third time, if the second had not been successful. We married in 2004. Mark was calm, warm and empathetic, and he could find humour in any situation. He was often to be found in the garden, notepad and freshly sharpened pencil in hand, and was proud of his uninterrupted Duolingo streak. He loved long urban walks for research and relaxation, and country walks with his family. Mark is survived by our son, Teo, and me, his son, Leon, from an earlier relationship, and by his brother, Chris, and his parents.