Associations & Organisations

• Montreal Serai

  A politically engaged cultural magazine that has a growing online presence (over 2000 subscribers). Montreal Serai rightly prides itself on the ethnic and cultural diversity of its writers and subjects. The webzine covers all the arts, both big and small (from cinema to poetry) with equal dedication.

• 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.).

• Ubuweb

  A wholly independent, wonderful resource on the avant-garde, poetry (in all its forms) and, to quote Ubuweb, “outsider arts.” Includes many sounds, music, books, essays, poems, interviews, radio spots, and critical works that have been salvaged from obscurity, or at least made readily available through their website.

• 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.

• 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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Blogs

• FIAF

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

  

• Electronics Arts Intermix (EAI)

  Non-profit resource for film, video and interactive media art. Includes substantial video streaming samples of many of their artists, including Chris Marker, George Kuchar, Ken Jacobs, Carolee Schneemann, Michael Snow, and Douglas Gordon.

• 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.

• 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).

• 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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By Way of Montreal

• Canuxploitation

  All you need to know about Canadian exploitation cinema (and there’s more than you’d expect!).

• FIAF

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

  

• Cine Outside

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

• 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.

• Filmmaker Magazine

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

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DVD Review Sites

• FIAF

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

  

• 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.

• Truth-in-Cinema

  Quirky but intense website dedicated to the cinematic spiritual heavyweights (Tarkovsky, Bergman, Ozu, Sokurv, etc.).

• 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.

• Film Studies For Free

  Run by Catherine Grant, this is an invaluable resource which does exactly what its title would suggest: it brings together in one place links to scholarly and intelligent articles and essays on a wide range of subjects that are available for free. The site is dangerous. Why? Well because when you visit this site you will always spend more time perusing the many interesting links and connected tangents than you can afford!

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Filmmakers

• The Glorious and The Grotesque: Horror Cinema of the 70s and 80s

  The first of what we hope to be many websites sponsored by Offscreen. This one looks at the social, political, aesthetic and cultural aspects of one of the high points of American horror, the horror films of the 1970s and 1980s. Included are the many contemporary remakes of this by now classic horror films.

• Truth-in-Cinema

  Quirky but intense website dedicated to the cinematic spiritual heavyweights (Tarkovsky, Bergman, Ozu, Sokurv, etc.).

• Fangoria

  Website that both promotes and adds material to the long running horror magazine.

• 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.

• 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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Journalism and Criticism

• 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.

• 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).

• 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.

• Incite! Journal of Experimental Media & Radical Aesthetics

  “INCITE! is a new journal dedicated to the discourse, culture, and community of experimental film, video, and new media. Merging handmade and online platforms, this hybrid publication addresses the lack of critical attention afforded film and media artists working today. In addition to scholarly articles, INCITE! publishes aesthetic statements, manifestos, artist projects, multiples, archival documents, interviews, reviews, and hastily drawn plans. Stationing ourselves at the cross-flow of research, scholarship, and creation, we encourage personal writing, critical poetics, and radical approaches to film and media (editor, Brett Kashmere).

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Publishers, Labels, and Retailers

• Cine Outside

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

• 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.

• Truth-in-Cinema

  Quirky but intense website dedicated to the cinematic spiritual heavyweights (Tarkovsky, Bergman, Ozu, Sokurv, etc.).

• Fangoria

  Website that both promotes and adds material to the long running horror magazine.

• 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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Theory, History, and Analysis

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Film Sound

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

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