Films on video and DVD worldwide

This is worth knowing about - the Film Search page of the BuechereiWiki site (the site’s in German but the Film Search section is available in English). The site itself appears to be a wiki for library resources.

It’s a remarkable listing of video and DVD sources worldwide, put together by Peter Delin of the Central and Regional Library, Berlin. The list covers Europe, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Scandanavia, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East, South Asia, South-East Asia, East Asia, North America, Australia and New Zealand - plus special areas, including film footage, amateur film, documentaries, experimental films, shorts, and … silents. There are some extraordinary individual resources there, particularly search engines which look across European library collections, which I’ll investigate further and report back. Meanwhile, it’s certainly a page to bookmark.

Infax and Open Archive

Infax is the BBC’s own programme catalogue, and as many will know a public version of this has been made available on the web for a year or so now. A revamped version has just been published, with a touch more design and in a fetching shade of pink, and it’s more than worth noting here for the details it has of television and radio programmes on silent cinema.

Given that it has 900,000 records (maybe half of the entire BBC output, but it predominantly records programmes that survive in the BBC archives), it’s a bit disappointing to find just 63 listed under the category ’silent films’, but what’s there is fascinating enough, especially the records of older programmes with interviewees no longer with us.

For example, there’s the 1969 Yesterday’s Witness programme interviewing the 93-year-old British film director George Pearson, who directed his first film in 1914.

Or Michael Bentine’s 1969-70 television series Golden Silents, from the days when you could get thirty-part series on the history of silent films.

Or diverting magazine entertainment, such as Bob Langley chating to silent film pianists Florence de Jong and Ena Baga (doyennes of the National Film Theatre) for Saturday Night at the Mill in 1979.

It’s also worth seaching under the names of individuals who may not have been indexed under ’silent films’, e.g. Georges Melies being discussed in a Horizon programme on special effects in 1974.

It’s mostly recent programmes that are recorded, and then usually items in arts programmes. Of course, its just the catalogue and not the programmes themselves. Those remain in the vaults, though the BBC has ambitious plans for substantial amounts of archive content to be released online, what’s called its Open Archive project. Closed trials of this are underway, and version one of a full service (subject to Public Value tests) could come in Spring 2008.

Paimann’s Filmlisten

Let us move away from all this star-laden stuff, and get back to the nuts and bolts of silent film research. I don’t know how many English-speaking researchers will know about Paimann’s Filmlisten. It was an Austrian film review journal, which ran 1916-1956 (founded by Franz Paimann), listing all new film releases with synopsis and credit details for films shown in Austria. Clearly, it will be known to German and Austrian researchers, but a quick Google search found no English language references.

The reason for mentioning here is that there is an index to the entire run, made available online by the Vienna Bibliothek. It arranges all the films by original release title, followed by Austrian release title, date, and reference number for the issue of Paimann’s Filmlisten. Here’s a section from the letter B, to give you an idea of what’s there:

Biarritz und seine Umgebung 1922-105, Nr. 331
Bibel, Die 1925-45
Biberpelz, Der 1929-105
Bibi la purée (Francsfälscher) 1926-91
Bid to love - Gaby, das Königsliebchen (Der Autoprinz) 1927-137
Biene Maja und ihre Abenteuer, Die 1926-81
Biene und ihre Zucht, Die 1918/19-57, Nr.131
Big adventures (Der kleine Landstreicher) 1923-39, Nr. 360
Big City, The (Das unsichtbare New-York) 1928-94
Big Dan - Entfesselte Leidenschaft (Eine verhängnisvolle Nacht) 1926-1
Big Killing, The (Riff und Raff als Scharfschützen) 1929-89
Big Parade, The (Die Parade des Todes) 1926-173
Big Pond - La grande mare (Über’n großen Teich) 1931-63
Big timber - Der Kampf im Urwald (Urwaldriesen) 1925-120
Big Trail, The (Die große Fahrt) 1931-39, 69

There are no digitised copies of the reviews, alas, nor any credits, but as a check list of titles and evidence of their distribution it’s an invaluable resource - all the more invaluable for those with access to the journal itself (the Austrian Film Archive has a set) It appears to go up to 1931 so far, so ideal for investigating silents.

When the Movies Began…

The latest feature to be added to the Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema web site is When the Movies Began. This is a chronology of the world’s film productions and film shows before May 1896. It was originally compiled by Stephen Herbert and published as a booklet by The Projection Box in 1994. This updated and redesigned version incorporates new research, in particular the work of Deac Rossell, and it will be regularly revised and updated. There is also a full introduction and list of references.

Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema is a biographical reference guide to 300 or so people involved in the production of motion pictures before 1901, both behind and in front of the camera. It includes a wealth of supporting resources on the subject of Victorian film (i.e. film during the time of Queen Victoria’s reign), with a growing number of special features, such as When the Movies Began.

Terra Media

A key aspect of The Bioscope’s mission is to highlight resources for the study of silent film, particularly those not well known or obvious.

A model example is Terra Media. This is a one-man marvel of information on the history of media, beautifully arranged, and filled with riches. Its centrepiece is Chronomedia, a detailed chonology of media history year-by-year. As the site says, “Chronomedia is designed to become the most comprehensive and accurate timeline of developments in communications media ever compiled. By integrating references to all audio-visual media—film and cinema, radio and television, cable and satellite, interactive (multi)media, photography, telegraphy, telephony and even printing and publishing—it becomes easier to see the parallel developments and interactions that have formed the media scene we know today.” The year-search option alone is a joy to see, individual entries are to the point, and it is all very satisfactorily cross-indexed, linked and illustrated.

There are other sections on quotations, the history of television as public performance, the quest for home video, a reference section, and a fascinating section on British media legislation. There are further sections on statistics (including early British cinema circuits) and contemporary documents (none covering the silent era). The site continues to grow, and is just such a pleasure to use. Its editor is David Fisher, whose day job is editor of the media news and market research journal Screen Digest. Take a look.