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).
