The Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, the publisher of The Independent Film and Video Monthly, and host of trainings, films festivals, and filmmaker seminars and networking events for thirty years is in what look like desperate straits. The organization is probably known by every independent filmmaker but its effectiveness and importance have waned during […]
Continue readingFilmmakers up in arms: Smithsonian sells out – Can they do that?
The Smithsonian has cut a deal with Showtime allowing them the right of first-refusal for works created using Smithsonian archival material. This means that if a filmmaker uses materials owned by the Smithsonian in his/her film, then Showtime on demand is given dibs on airing it first, unless they choose not to. Many filmmakers and […]
Continue reading“The 50 Greatest Independent Films”
A British film website called Empire Online has a list of what they deem “The 50 Greatest Independent Films” Here it is along with Media Services call numbers for the ones we own. In countdown order: 50. El Mariachi VHS 294749. Run Lola Run DVD 9248. Cube DVD 7847. Blood Feast 46. Texas Chainsaw Massacre […]
Continue readingMust-see video: Ilha das flores = Isle of flowers (1989) VHS 2926
What starts out as a humorous take on the food chain from a middle-class Brazilian perspective suddenly evolves into a scathing indictment of the social system as it looks at what becomes of the garbage produced by the inhabitants of Porto Alegre, Brazil. This 13-minute film is little-known in the US, but it garnered enough […]
Continue readingCool ALADIN e-books: VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever, 2006 Ed. and International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers , 4th Ed.
Gale Virtual Reference Library is a group of reference works in digital format. Videohound contains an “extensive listing of movies available on video–more than 23,000 in all”, however it does have a serious shortcoming. The electronic edition lacks many of the great cross-referencing indexes and subject lists that set the print version apart from its […]
Continue readingCopyright and Documentary Filmmaking: the Comic Book
A tight dressed, spiky haired filmmaker turns into a tight dressed, spiky haired superhero to fight expanding copyright restrictions. The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University School of Law has a novel way of presenting the current difficulties documentary filmmakers are facing. The comic book, Bound by Law? by Keith […]
Continue readingCool tools: WRLC library maps
One of the greatest assets available to the AU community is our membership in the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC). WRLC resources can be requested through ALADIN, but sooner or later you may need to go to one of these schools. The AU website has a couple of tools to help you navigate the terra […]
Continue readingHistorical Nuclear Test Film Archive
The Department of Energy’s website has streaming video of about 75 nuclear tests from the 1940s to the 1970s, many recently declassified – the site is much more exhaustive than anything I’ve seen on this subject previously. link
Continue readingMarch Madness: Basketball films in Media Services
The Big Game (1982, VHS 4067) – From the classic Middletown film series on life in and around Muncie, Indiana – itself a complement to the Middletown studies conducted by Robert and Helen Lynd in the 1920s and 1930s. Director E.J. Vaughn uses a cinema verite technique to capture the activity surrounding the annual basketball […]
Continue readingA few cult movies now in the public domain and on Google video
Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968)Reefer Madness (Gasnier, 1936)Plan 9 from Outer Space (Wood, 1959)
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