Landmark Silent And Feature Film Databases Launch At Alexander Street Press | Alexander Street

Landmark Silent And Feature Film Databases Launch At Alexander Street Press

August 14, 2012

(ALEXANDRIA, VA)—Alexander Street Press expands its visual arts offerings with the release of two streaming video collections, Silent Film Online and New World Cinema: Independent Features and Shorts, 1990‒Present.

Silent Film OnlineSilent Film Online is carefully curated by Alexander Street’s editors and Video Advisory Board to include high-quality silent feature films, serials, and shorts from the 1890s to the 1930s. These films, which come from many of the industry’s most notable pioneers, provide primary source documentation of foundational techniques in filmmaking and serve as a powerful resource for the study of late nineteenth and early twentieth century history, culture, and attitudes.

Highlights from the collection include Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903), F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), Harry A. Pollard’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927), and assorted works from filmmakers including D.W. Griffith, Georges Méliès, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Charles Chaplin, Luis Buñuel, Ernst Lubitsch, Victor Sjostrom, Erich von Stroheim, Carl T. Dreyer, and others.

The globally minded collection includes examples of the silent film movement from Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France, and complements its feature films with a selection of related documentaries. Launching with three hundred streaming online titles, Silent Film Online will more than double in size before completion.

New World CinemaNearly two hundred full-length feature films and fifty shorts were hand-selected to comprise New World Cinema: Independent Features and Shorts, 1990‒Present. The films, all of which appeared at major film festivals, have collectively won more than one thousand awards and come from leading industry distributors like Kino Lorber, First Run Features, Film Movement, MK2, and the Global Films Initiative. Featured works include Oscar nominees like Yôji Yamada’s Twilight Samurai, Tran Anh Hung’s The Scent of Green Papaya, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Dogtooth, as well as Cannes Grand Prize-winner The Piano Teacher, directed by Michael Haneke.

The titles represent sixty countries and forty languages, providing a window into a wide range of cultures and sociological issues across the globe. The collection highlights a variety of cinematographic techniques and features works by many of the world’s leading contemporary directors, including Andrei Zvyagintsev, Koji Wakamatsu, Wong Kar-Wai, and Jean-Luc Godard.

“While these collections provide valuable content for cinema studies, their scholarly applications extend well beyond that,” says Will Whalen, Vice President of Licensing at Alexander Street. “Extensive indexing means viewers can identify films by release year, cultural or political topic, or any key word, making relevant content easy to find for the study of sociology, linguistics, anthropology, and more.”

Both collections are currently for sale in North America. More information about Silent Film Online and New World Cinema, including a full list of film titles, is available online. To request a free trial or price quote, please e-mail sales [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com.

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About Alexander Street Press
Alexander Street Press is an electronic publisher of award-winning online collections and video for scholarly research, teaching, and learning. Our products are available to libraries and educational institutions worldwide via annual subscription or one-time purchase. Learn more at http://www.alexanderstreet.com.

Contact for Media Inquiries/Reviewer Access:
Abby Horowitz, Marketing Writer
Alexander Street Press
3212 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-212-8520 x 313
ahorowitz [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com

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