Associations & Organisations

• FIAF

  Site for the Journal of Film Preservation. Amazingly, the site includes full text (pdf file) access to the excellent association journal.

  

• Women Make Movies

  A non-profit organization which promotes and distributes films from all over the world made by and about women. Their catalogue contains over 400 titles in all genres, with an emphasis on documentary and experimental.

• Images: a journal of film and popular culture

  Intelligent analysis of popular genres. Includes an excellent “In Focus” section on Italian Gothic Horror film.

• Short Ends

  A small Montreal-based socially committed film collective that encourages personal writing on films that are off the mainstream path.

• Stan Brakhage on the Web

  Filmmaker red Camper’s labour of love on the late Stan Brakhage. Extensive material covering the life of America’s seminal avant-garde filmmaker.

View all Associations & Organisations →

Blogs

• Bright Lights Film Journal

  Once a print magazine, now an intelligent journal of film criticism. Equally compelling with popular film and the more esoteric. Manages to nicely blend a scholarly yet readable approach to a variety of subjects ranging in equal measure from the horror genre to experimental cinema.

• 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.

• Eurochannel

  Eurochannel is your one-stop subscription online portal for European music, television, cinema, fashion, and art. The Eurochannel cinema features a wide variety of feature length films, shorts, and documentary, with 70 films a month, three new films every week.

  

• Cinema of Malayalam

  Website dedicated to the cinema of Kerala, the southernmost costal state of India. This website contains an extensive database of national and international award winning films and directors of Malayalam (the language spoken in Kerala) cinema.

• 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.

View all Blogs →

By Way of Montreal

• Senses of Cinema

  Huge, very well supported film journal that is perhaps the best of its kind. Each new issue has enough material to keep you reading for hours.

• Caracult and Fuorivista

  Two interesting linked Italian websites, one, Caracult, exploring the broader cultural sphere with a slant toward the esoteric and the anthropological, and the other, Fuorivista, a cinema journal featuring varied approaches to marginalized cinemas and an inclusive understanding of cinema (the journal is interested in all aspects of cinema, aesthetic, industrial, spectatorial, etc.).

• 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.

• 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.

• Infliction Film

  Website where you can get information on films made or produced by Mitch Davis, who also programs for Fantasia, and the Cinema du Parc theatre. Great links page.

View all By Way of Montreal →

DVD Review Sites

• Screening the Past

  One of the few refereed online film journals.

• Film Studies For Free

  Great blog that is more than a blog: a wealth of resources for online scholarly writing on film that is ‘open access’ (free). There is a lot of really good stuff written on the web of value and this site does a great service in promoting this.

• Film Int.

  Online organ to the excellent, longstanding Swedish based film magazine, Film International (Filmint.).

• Cine Outside

  Well organized site that focuses on recent new release reviews but also features longer think pieces on broader cinema related issues.

• 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.

View all DVD Review Sites →

Filmmakers

• Film Sound

  Extensive, one stop location for everything you wanted to know about film sound.

• Filmsound.org

  The internet’s foremost resource on matters of film sound theory and practice.

  

• Fab Press

  UK publishing house run and operated by the indefatigable Harvey Fenton. Genre material done with passion, style, and intelligence.

• Bright Lights Film Journal

  Once a print magazine, now an intelligent journal of film criticism. Equally compelling with popular film and the more esoteric. Manages to nicely blend a scholarly yet readable approach to a variety of subjects ranging in equal measure from the horror genre to experimental cinema.

• Film Studies Association of Canada

  Organ for Canada’s long running Association that brings together film scholars, students, researchers, and teachers from all over the country.

  

View all Filmmakers →

Journalism and Criticism

• Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism

  What a wonderful surprise it was to learn of this new (2010) rekindling of the excellent British film magazine Movie, that ran from 1962 to 2000 and published some of the most engaged, constructive and intelligent film criticism of its time. The online version of Movie provides a nice lineage with the original by including a tribute to one of its founding fathers Ian Cameron (who died in January 2010) by V.F. Perkins, another important figurehead of the original magazine, as well as reprinted the essay by Cameron “Films, Directors, and Critics” from Movie #2. The online version (which is refereed and bi-annual) also emulates the style and layout of the original magazine, and includes some excellent frame grabs. Welcome back.

• Giallo Fever

  Keith Brown’s excellent analysis of the Italian giallo. Entries are normally on a singular film, but reference previous entries and are part of a broader aesthetic and stylistic understanding of the giallo (Brown is a PhD student and I imagine his thesis is on the giallo).

• Short Ends

  A small Montreal-based socially committed film collective that encourages personal writing on films that are off the mainstream path.

• The Island of Sokurov

  Offical website for the Russian director.

• Masters of Cinema

  Serious, erudite in the best sense possible. Covers art house DVD releases across all DVD regions. Great for making your mouth water over DVD’s you don’t have but would die for.

View all Journalism and Criticism →

Publishers, Labels, and Retailers

• Film Int.

  Online organ to the excellent, longstanding Swedish based film magazine, Film International (Filmint.).

• Infliction Film

  Website where you can get information on films made or produced by Mitch Davis, who also programs for Fantasia, and the Cinema du Parc theatre. Great links page.

• The Italian Page

  A one-stop destination for all things Italy related, spanning culture, art, film, education, travel, health, sports, architecture, and history.

• Cineaste

  One of the most venerable American paper film magazine has slowly been upping their online presence, and now has added exclusive online content, a smattering of ‘free’ published material and a valuable always-up-to-date cumulative index.

• Images: a journal of film and popular culture

  Intelligent analysis of popular genres. Includes an excellent “In Focus” section on Italian Gothic Horror film.

View all Publishers, Labels, and Retailers →

Theory, History, and Analysis

• 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.”

• 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.

• Filmmaker Magazine

  Online organ for the magazine dedicated to independent cinema. Includes additonal material not featured in the print version.

• Cineroute

  A gateway into the National Film Board of Canada’s vast film collection.

• Octane Seating: Guide to Reading Scripts

  A guide to finding and reading scripts online. Good resource for the budding screenwriter.

View all Theory, History, and Analysis →