Links
Associations & Organisations
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David Bordwell’s Film Blog
There are many film blogs on the web, some good, some not so good. As you might expect from one of the pre-eminent film scholars of his generation, this one from David Bordwell is good, very good.
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Cineaste
Online link-up for the longstanding film magazine, which now includes web only material that supplements the monthly paper editions. Cineaste continues to publish excellent, well-informed criticism informed by all aspects of film art: the social, political and aesthetic.
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Oddity Cinema
As the title suggests, Oddity Cinema is a webzine which tackles the weird and the wonderful in bite-sized morsels of critical commentary, capsule reviews, interviews, trailers, plugs for upcoming releases, etc. What sets it apart from most online review sites is its interactivity, with readers able to add their own comments to reviews. The design is colorful and attractive, yet remains functional and easy to navigate.
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Fangoria
Website that both promotes and adds material to the long running horror magazine.
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Learning Adobe Premiere
If you are a young filmmaker or critic wanting to learn how to make audio-visual essays, this is a good primer.
View all Associations & Organisations →
Blogs
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Ingmar Bergman Face to Face
English version of the award winning Swedish website on Ingmar Bergman, launched on May 22, 2006. An excellent reference site for works by and about Bergman.
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Culture.ca
This website is an initiative of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and functions as a one-stop gateway to all aspects of the Canadian cultural scene, including history, politics, sports, and art. Contains an impressive range of up-to-date links and cultural information, including streamed segments from the CBC Television Archives.
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Images: a journal of film and popular culture
Intelligent analysis of popular genres. Includes an excellent “In Focus” section on Italian Gothic Horror film.
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Octane Seating
Resources for the independent filmmaker.
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Film Festival World
Excellent, valuable online resource for everything connected to the world of the film festival. By far the most complete, organised, and up-to-date resource on film festivals from all over the world. Resources include a listing of International film academies and awards bodies and links to film journals and e-zines.
By Way of Montreal
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Tim Cawkwell’s Cinema
A sounding board for former filmmaker Tim Cawkwell, on the more esoteric and contemplative aspects of film thought (religion, theology, the imagination, etc.). Cawkwell writes with the general reader in mind, not necessarily the arcane academic. As his logo states, “Intelligible writing about intelligent film.”
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Cinemasparagus
Craig Keller’s eclectic musings on a broad range of intelligent (with a slant on European), auteurist cinema.
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Cult Epics
Independent DVD label which specializes in esoteric arthouse, erotica, and horror cinema. Their releases are always a labor of love with care, commitment, and excellent supplementary material.
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Cinémathèque Québécoise
Montreal’s venerable cinema treasure which houses major retrospectives and selections from its own vast archive collection. Also includes an invaluable library of film books, periodicals, newspaper clippings, posters, etc., which is a mine of information for scholars and students.
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Korean Film
Excellent site on Korean cinema. Includes book/film reviews, purchasing links, festival updates, industry analysis, etc.
DVD Review Sites
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Camera & Pen
An elegantly designed website by filmmaker/writer Tim Cawkwell that features “intelligent” musings on cinema, with an emphasis on avant-garde and spiritual cinema (Bresson, Tarkovsky, Dreyer, the Holocaust, plus Cawkwell has authored a book entitled The Filmmaker’s Guide to God in 2004). The site’s title, which is a reference to Alexandre Astruc’s caméra-stylo,’ and is appropriately subtitled “Intelligible writing about intelligent film,” also includes snippets of Cawkwell’s aborted (he stopped making films in 1987) practical creative career under the heading “own work.” A site well-worth visiting.
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Film Int.
Online organ to the excellent, longstanding Swedish based film magazine, Film International (Filmint.).
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British Film Institute
Excellent and in-depth site from the venerable British Film Institute. Highlights include the series “BFI Archive Interactive” which includes excellent interactive studies on British cinema. A recent one was Paul Merton on Early British Comedy.
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Electric Sheep Magazine
Subtitled a “deviant view of cinema” Electric Sheep is an intelligent source of serious reflection on all sorts of cinema, but with a concentration on the esoteric. Varied in content too, with blogs, podcasts, interviews, etc.
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Digitalarti
Your one-stop online source for everything digital art. Portal to events across Canada and Europe, live performances, lectures, and online journal dedicated to digital art available as a free pdf journal. Latest issue (Mag. No. 5) includes an interesting essay on the permutations of meanings on the internet. What is most important. What people read? How they read? Where the information is saved? How it is transmitted? Where are all these servers served? What is the environmental footprint of these ‘data centers’? You’ll be surprised.
Filmmakers
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Vertigo
Vertigo is an international film magazine covering the best of independent and experimental film. This is the recently added online version of its hard copy magazine of the same name, which has been documenting global screen culture since 1993.
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Rouge
Rouge, edited by Adrian Martin, is a simple, user-friendly online film journal which is all about the writing, and mantains one of the highest standards of writing of any online film journal.
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Cineroute
A gateway into the National Film Board of Canada’s vast film collection.
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Index DVD
Independent video distribution label which strongly promotes Austrian (mainly) and East European political and avant-garde artists. Their DVDs are beautiful works of art in themselves, with stylish see-through covers, copious (bilingual) liner notes and artist bios.
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Cinema Scope
Cinema Scope is one of, if not the, best Canadian film magazines on the market, featuring intelligent criticism, festival coverage, and interviews. Their website offers content information on current and back issues, subscription information, and some web only content.
Journalism and Criticism
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Index DVD
Independent video distribution label which strongly promotes Austrian (mainly) and East European political and avant-garde artists. Their DVDs are beautiful works of art in themselves, with stylish see-through covers, copious (bilingual) liner notes and artist bios.
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Octane Seating: Independent Cinema
From Script to Screen: Unlocking the World of Independent Film and Film Festival. A snapshot of independent cinema through history, from the silent days to contemporary cinema.
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Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema
Excellent website dedicated to pre-cinema and early cinema. The site is based on a book entitled Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema edited by Stephen Herbert and Luke McKernan, which can be purchased through the website.
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Movieplayer.it
Italian language one stop site for all news/info on what is playing and forthcoming across Italy. Although the texts are written in Italian, and consumer geared, there is a huge database of trailers, many in their original languages, which are not easily found elsewhere. Not only are there tons of trailers, but links to biographies of film personalities, event descriptions (like currently a notice of the restored screening of Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima, Mon Amour playing at the Cinema Ritrovato a Bologna), etc. Where else can you find, as in the ‘Oggi al cinema’ section, what is playing where across all of Italy? I find it particularly useful for discovering recent Italian films, rather than the North American films filling many screens there as elsewhere. The site is very well organized and essential for Italians seeking cinema news, and any one travelling to Italy who doesn’t want to miss out on their film fix.
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The Art(s) of Slow Cinema
A wonderful online presence that functions as a one-spot venue for films that “take their time”, films that challenge spectators to contemplate the world around them. Created and run by Nadin Mai.
View all Journalism and Criticism →
Publishers, Labels, and Retailers
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The Artifice
An intelligent, broad ranging cultural criticism journal which impressively covers such diverse popular art areas as art, literature, film, TV, comics, manga, games, and anime. Pleasing jargon free writing that is informed, personal and critically astute.
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Cineaste
Online link-up for the longstanding film magazine, which now includes web only material that supplements the monthly paper editions. Cineaste continues to publish excellent, well-informed criticism informed by all aspects of film art: the social, political and aesthetic.
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Screening the Past
One of the few refereed online film journals.
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David Bordwell’s Film Blog
There are many film blogs on the web, some good, some not so good. As you might expect from one of the pre-eminent film scholars of his generation, this one from David Bordwell is good, very good.
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Octane Seating: Guide to Reading Scripts
A guide to finding and reading scripts online. Good resource for the budding screenwriter.
View all Publishers, Labels, and Retailers →
Theory, History, and Analysis
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Tim Cawkwell’s Cinema
A sounding board for former filmmaker Tim Cawkwell, on the more esoteric and contemplative aspects of film thought (religion, theology, the imagination, etc.). Cawkwell writes with the general reader in mind, not necessarily the arcane academic. As his logo states, “Intelligible writing about intelligent film.”
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Learning Adobe Premiere
If you are a young filmmaker or critic wanting to learn how to make audio-visual essays, this is a good primer.
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Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema
Excellent website dedicated to pre-cinema and early cinema. The site is based on a book entitled Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema edited by Stephen Herbert and Luke McKernan, which can be purchased through the website.
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FIAF
Site for the Journal of Film Preservation. Amazingly, the site includes full text (pdf file) access to the excellent association journal.
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The Criterion Collection
Home of the DVD company committed to the promotion of International cinema. The name has become synonymous with quality, and the yardstick by which other DVD transfers are measured.
