The 1980s witnessed the growth of a vibrant independent film and video sector in the UK. This sector included both artists working and experimenting with moving image technology and media workers operating in a workshop environment, facilitating access to moving image technology for the wider public, most usually those under or misrepresented by the mass media. Changes in arts funding and political agendas towards the end of the 1980s, however, together with a move towards professionalisation of the sector and the development of digital technology, produced a shift in the nature of independent film and video culture in Britain during the 1990s. On the one hand, some of the innovative qualities and political radicalism of the sector seemed to be lost, while a number of artists also broadened their interests beyond film and video to encompass a multimedia palette. On the other, the amalgamation in the late 1990s of the London Filmmakers Coop and London Electronic Arts (formerly London Video Access, itself formerly London Video Arts) into one organisation, The Lux, housing production, distribution and exhibition facilities, appeared to suggest independent film/video practice had become a firmly established facet of moving image culture in Britain. Yet, as the October 2001 liquidation of The Lux Centre - the key distributor of independent film and video work in the UK - and the reversion to volunteer labour by Cinenova - the only women's film and video distributor in Europe - in November 2000 demonstrate, the machinery of distribution remains both fragile and of fundamental importance if such work is to continue to be seen.

It should be pointed out that the Lux has been relaunched and Cinenova continues to trade.

This is the information page for a series of linked research projects which aim to assess the role and effectiveness of distribution as an institution that mediated between film/video makers and their audiences within the independent film/video sector during the 1980s and 1990s, and to suggest effective strategies for the future. The first of these started in 2002, in the wake of the liquidation of the Lux Centre, and for three years gathered and assessed documentary evidence and oral testimony from distribution staff, makers, and funding staff covering the period 1966-2000. Comparative research on comparable US groups was also undertaken. In 2004 a one year project addressing the time since 2000 was undertaken, and since October 2005 we have been building a website (not this one) which will present a databased, searchable and referenced chronological history, which will be linked to the documents and interviews which are its basis (due to be launched in Spring 2009 as the Film and Video Distribution Database). These three projects have been generously supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

This site features the original terms of reference of the projects, a summary of our annual research findings, and information about conference papers and published articles emanating from the project. A book is also being prepared which will be published by Intellect Press. While this site aims to give out information about our projects, we also hope that interested parties who we have not been able to locate will contact us through it. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people who have agreed to be interviewed, and those who have saved and made documents available to us over the last five years. Your support and enthusiasm has been invaluable.