Archive • June 2012

Hitchcock’s Directorial Debut, Restored

posted June 29, 2012

ThePleasureGarden1925

Alfred Hitchcock’s directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden, a silent melodrama made in 1925 when he was 25, follows the differing fortunes in love of two dancers at a London nightspot. Played by Universal star Virginia Valli and rarely again filmed Carmelita Geraghty, their fortunes take melodramatic, differing turns: One becomes a major star, while the other ...

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Categories: Features

European TV Memories

posted June 20, 2012

European TV Memories

CALL FOR PAPERS Journal of European Television History and Culture ‘European TV Memories’ Deadline: September 6 2012 The Journal of European Television History and Culture welcomes paper proposals for its third issue dedicated to “European TV Memories” and guest-edited by Jérôme Bourdon (Tel Aviv University) and Berber Hagedoorn (Utrecht University). The journal is the first peer-reviewed multi-media e-journal in the field of television ...

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Final EUscreen Conference

posted June 20, 2012

Final EUscreen Conference

Television Heritage and the Web 13-14 September 2012 ELTE University, Budapest, Hungary EUscreen, the best-practice network for Europe’s television heritage, has announced its third and final international conference on Television Heritage and the Web. The programme consists of two workshops, a plenary session with keynotes, and case studies. Attendance is free but online registration is required. The conference announcement ...

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J-Film Goes Global

posted June 18, 2012

Anime, J-horror, and Japanese personal documentary and “ethnic cinema” have gone global, and that’s in good part due to the advent of digital technology. So writes Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano in Japanese Cinema in the Digital Age, just out from the University of Hawai’i Press. The associate professor of film studies at Carleton University in Ottawa explores the ...

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Categories: Shorts

J-Film Goes Global

posted June 18, 2012

Hideo Nakata's "Ringu" (The Ring), from 1998

Anime, J-horror, and Japanese personal documentary and “ethnic cinema” have gone global, and that’s in good part due to the advent of digital technology. So writes Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano in Japanese Cinema in the Digital Age, just out from the University of Hawai’i Press. The associate professor of film studies at Carleton University in Ottawa explores the ...

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Categories: Uncategorized

Instant Cinema: Experimental Media Art Online

posted June 13, 2012

Instant-Cinema-time-based-art-forum

In moving-image art, as in any other medium, producing the innovations that matter for the future of the art form risks going largely unnoticed in the present. Festivals and museum exhibitions have traditionally been the prestigious arenas for experimental film, video, and computer art, but for reaching a global viewership, the Internet arguably trumps all, particularly ...

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Categories: FeaturesOf Special Interest

National Film Preservation Foundation Helps to Save Films by Tod Browning, John Cage, and Many Others

posted June 13, 2012

Anna May Wong, often called the first Asian-American movie star

June 12 2012 – The National Film Preservation Foundation announced today that it has awarded grants to save 60 films, including Tod Browning’s underworld melodrama Drifting (1923), starring Wallace Beery and the 15-year-old Anna May Wong, and a newly discovered film by composer John Cage and sculptor Richard Lippold, The Sun Project (1956). The San Francisco-based NFPF ...

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Categories: Features

Wunderkino: Polavision, Operation Ditty, and the Avant-Garde

posted June 12, 2012

A still from Susan Patrick's "The Adventures of The Girls from Ditty" (1967), in which school-girl detective-spies maintain world peace and security, as they are wont to do. The Ditty Girls thwart an international incident and potential revolution by rescuing a princess from the clutches of the evil Mysterious Cult of the Black Mushroom.

Wunderkino Northeast Historic Film, Bucksport, Maine, USA July 26-28 2012 Amazing and extraordinary studies of amateur and non-theatrical films is what the organizers of Wunderkino asked for, and they have now announced what they got. Northeast Historic Film, based in Bucksport, Maine, promises a varied, diverting selection of presentations at its annual gathering, ones that offer lessons about culture, ...

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Categories: Features

Roxy Rothafel, Begetter of American Entertainment

posted June 5, 2012

Roxy.by_.columbia.university.press_

Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel was one of the most extraordinary founders of modern American entertainment. During his life (1882-1936), he was a film exhibitor, stage producer, radio broadcaster, musical arranger, theater manager, war propagandist, and international celebrity – an influential figure of the silent era who helped to bring together film, music, and live performance. As a ...

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Categories: Features