ataraxy

29 August 2012
3:56 pm
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Beginner’s Guide to International Cinema

So I’ve received over the past several months many people asking me about broadening their interest in film. I usually just send my mubi profile to them or something but instead I thought I’d give resources and some tips to watching international cinema.

Resources For Finding Films

Scouring through DVD companies’ film lists are definitely a good way to get into films. Companies like Second Run DVD and Milestone Films are great resources. As well, Facets DVD, a nonprofit company located in Chicago, has a large abundance of hard-to-find films from all over the world. They also have an educational information page of other films one can watch.

Film journals like Senses of Cinema and desistfilm (which my friend unpopularculture talks about here) as well as film blogs like The Seventh Art.

Film Organizations: World Cinema Foundation founded by Martin Scorsese, Global Film Initiative and dozens of others.

Third World Cinema: general introduction guide and The Hour of the Furnaces, a documentary that started the Third Cinema movement (highly recommended).

People hesitate about mubi but one of the best aspects of the site are the lists done by film fans who want to spread the wealth. They’re not perfect but they are great resources all the same. Just to give a small sample, there’s Essential African Films, Central Asian Cinema, Chinese Cinema, & Arabic Cinema. To explore the lists you have to get an account but even if you have no interest in using the account, using their lists feature is very helpful.

Resources to Watching Films
YOUTUBE - I can’t stress this enough. Many wonderful people on youtube are kind enough to take the time & upload films that are not easy to find.

kat.ph - a nifty torrent site with a lot of good films on available that have seeding (give or take).

Facets Film Portal: Again promoting Facets but they’re just so good. They have a link to finding free films online as well as a DVD rental service like netflix.

Netflix Instant - seriously just go through their ‘foreign film’ section and you’ll find so many gems lurking in there.

hulu+ (US) - Mainly for the Criterion Collection section but what’s great is that they also stream films that are not on DVD yet and have not even been announced.

fandor (US) - Another streaming site that’s geared to film fans.

Internet Archive - free films that are in the public domain

Subtitles - best to search via search engine but you’ll likely rely on Open Subtitles

Tips (under cut due to length):

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