Documentaries and the UK home video market

My paper will explore the home video market for documentaries in the UK, drawing on my experience as both a filmmaker and a distributor. My first feature documentary RFK Must Die (2007)grew out of a short film for BBC Newsnight and was released on DVD by distributors in the UK, US and Australia in 2008. Learning from this experience, I set up my own distribution label E2 Films to release my second feature Children of the Revolution (2011). When this film was released in Japan last summer, I did a press tour in Tokyo for the Japanese distributor. How do you distribute a documentary in the UK? Who are the gatekeepers, how do you gain visibility and how does the DVD supply chain work? My paper will provide a general overview of setting up and running a niche distribution label, a case study of a recent documentary I have released and insight into the current home video market for documentaries in the UK.