Footsteps

Funny business, tv commissioning. Commissioning suggests giving a go-ahead to an idea. Buying might suggest buying a programme that's already been made.

This week, BBC Arts announced a new Werner Herzog commission, Arena: Nomad - In The Footsteps Of Bruce Chatwin. Controller BBC2 Patrick Holland, is pretty clear it was a commission, not just a buy: “Werner Herzog is one of the world’s greatest filmmakers and commissioning this film about Bruce Chatwin for the BBC was one of the easier decisions we have had to make."   BBC Studios' Richard Bright is named as executive producer.

And yet, Sideways Film's website - they think they made it - makes no mention of the BBC. And one suspects it's been in the can for a bit, selected for showing at the Tribeca Film Festival at the end of this month.

Meanwhile, in the BBC vault, lies "In The Footsteps Of Bruce Chatwin", a documentary in two, one-hour, parts, made in 1999 by Chatwin's biographer Nicholas Shakespeare, and featuring one Werner Herzog.  The series got nine outings on BBC Knowledge in 2001, and two outings on BBC2 in 2010. Before Mr Holland's time ?