About a year ago, we rolled out Kanopy, a streaming service that includes hundreds of films from the Criterion Collection and more. We’re happy to see classes and students taking advantage of this great video resource, and we want to spotlight some of the most popular titles from this collection. This week, we’re focusing on […]
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RIP Andrezj Wajda, a voice for Poland in film
Yesterday, Polish director Andrezj Wajda died at age 90. He was among the most distinguished Polish filmmakers of his generation or in general: his accolades include a Palme d’Or for his labor rights film Man of Iron and a 1999 honorary Oscar for his lifetime body of work. As with Man of Iron, many of […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – September 2016, Part 2
Yes, part two! A steady stream of DVDs continues to flow into the library, and we’re getting them on the shelves for you. This month in particular had a focus on international films, so let’s talk about those. Pictured above is A Town Called Panic, the first stop-motion film ever screened at the Cannes Film […]
Continue readingRIP Abbas Kiarostami, defining voice of Iranian cinema
Over the weekend, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami died at age 76. Kiarostami was perhaps the greatest and most renowned Iranian filmmaker; he is the only to win a Palme d’Or, had an outsized influence on world cinema, and brought international attention to the Iranian film industry. His admirers include Martin Scorsese and Jean-Luc Godard, who […]
Continue readingArabian Sights Film Festival brings its twentieth year to Friendship Heights
From From A to B We’re close to the start of the unending stream of Halloween-related activities, but the rest of the world doesn’t stop in October. There are plenty of film happenings around DC this month, so let’s talk about one of the cooler ones, the twentieth anniversary of the Arabian Sights Film Festival. […]
Continue readingRIP William Becker, the unsung hero of world cinema
A week and a half ago, film distributor William Becker died. His name is not a recognizable one, and his quiet work at Janus Films and the Criterion Collection left a massive imprint on how we consume visual media. As the co-owner of Janus Films starting in 1965, Becker oversaw the importation of many influential […]
Continue readingChinese cancer rom-com Go Away Mr. Tumor comes to America – for free!
In 2011, Xiong Dun started an irreverent webcomic about her cancer diagnosis that gained millions of followers before she died a year later. Her comic was adapted into a romantic comedy movie this year, and although it was a success when it was released in China last month, it hasn’t yet come out in the […]
Continue readingBuenos Aires film festival puts decades of Latin American films online for free
Our comfortable routine of watching major blockbusters and idly browsing Netflix often blinds us to titles we wouldn’t otherwise seek out, and too often, that includes world cinema. Our usual outlets sometimes either downplay or outright omit films from other countries and in other languages. If you want to watch something from elsewhere on the […]
Continue readingWatch the suddenly-very-relevant Soy Cuba on the big screen
The normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba this week opens some obvious doors – some are surely counting down the days until legal cigar imports – but it also offers an appropriate moment to revisit cultural history we may have ignored intentionally or otherwise. Post-revolutionary Cuban films are sometimes left out of […]
Continue readingSOC’s International Cinema Series concludes Friday with British film
Back in the fall, SOC teamed up with the National Gallery of Art to kick off the International Cinema Series, a year-long roster of world cinema screenings and discussions. Over the course of the academic year, the series has covered Italy, China, Greece, the Czech Republic, and Brazil. This Friday, the International Cinema Series wraps […]
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