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Crafting their latest instalment in the Paradise Lost series of documentaries, filmmakers Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger could scarcely have believed the surprise ending that fell into their laps. After documenting their subjects, the notoriously wrongly jailed ‘West Memphis Three‘, on death row for 17 years, Berlinger and Sinofsky were able to see Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr and Jason Baldwin freed at last. After much deliberation, they were exonerated of the crime of killing three young boys in Arkansas in 1993. It was the vindication of a journey which saw the making and release of two other feature documentaries championing the cause, the recruitment of a series of influential celebrities, and more than a few near misses with the electric chair.

The Paradise Lost series is popularly seen as a major factor in the eventual release of the WM3; the documentaries raised awareness of their plight, and undoubtedly the funding for the trio’s legal defence could not have been secured without Berlinger and Sinofky’s involvement. It raises an important question for the medium - do documentaries truly have the power to change the world?

With The Thin Blue Line, for instance, the famous documentarian Errol Morris successfully presented evidence which pointed to the possibility that the murderer Randall Dale Adams was innocent of the crime for which he was imprisoned. One year after the film’s release, Adams was released; the fact that he later sought legal action against Morris to reclaim the rights to his life story is just a sad coda to a story of triumph, in which an acclaimed and courageous film helped effect real change.

Environmental docs have scored great successes too. The Cove, named 2010’s Best Documentary by the Academy Awards, raised awareness of Japanese dolphin fishing and forced Sea World to issue a statement denying that their dolphins were sourced from Japanese waters. An Inconvenient Truth, a climate change lecture helmed by former US vice president Al Gore, ignited a nationwide debate on the science and causes of global warming.

In modern times, the ultimate success of West Memphis Three’s campaign, and the undeniably enormous role played by Berlinger and Sinofsky in helping it, raises a number of interesting questions about the power of documentary to rally support for real-life causes. On one hand, the fragmentation of the media landscape means that viewing figures are dwindling for all but the most mass-market films, so films can struggle to capture the zeitgeist and motivate a unified body of viewers to action. On the other hand, the growth of social media means that publicising the right cause can be easier than ever.