Jay Ruby, a visual anthropologist and somewhat of an anti-establishmentarian, shared this link recently to an article in the New York Times that intelligently discusses the blurring of genres between fiction and documentary film making.  Ruby laments that too few anthropologists have experimented with this form.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/movies/22hybrid.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=it%27s%20actual%20life&st=cse