Five Gold Links

Film Studies For Free wishes you a very happy 2009, just a little later than hoped... Over the holidays it moved office into a lovely new blog-cabin, and since has been somewhat distracted both by its breathtaking new views of the Sussex countryside as well as the customary broadband-connection 'teething troubles' often attendant upon such moves.

FSFF will be back up to full speed (indeed, up to new and improved speed...) very soon. But in the meantime, on this, the thirteenth day of Christmas - were there such a thing - here are five gold links it wished it could have brought you just a tad earlier:

• Best film-blog discovery: Where the Stress Falls by M.S. Smith (check out two nice posts on the wonderful work of Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel - HERE and HERE)
• Best Harold Pinter film items to commemorate his death on 24 December: Kevin B. Lee's two brilliant posts (HERE and HERE, the latter a video essay by Lee and Dan Callahan) on one of FSFF's favourite films: The Go-Between (1970, scripted by Pinter, directed by Joseph Losey - see also Kimberley Lindbergs' great writing on Losey's films).
• Best new filmmaker online archive: the Carl Theodor Dreyer website set up by the Danish Film Institute (thanks to David Bordwell for the tip-off): check out, especially, the short and clips page.
• Best new issue of an Open Access film and media studies journal: Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, Volume 5, Issue 2 (November 2008).

Martin Barker, (Editor): 'Editorial Introduction' Selected Articles □ Barbara Klinger, : 'Say It Again, Sam: Movie Quotation, Performance and Masculinity' □ Yiu Fai Chow & Jeroen de Kloet: 'The Production of Locality in Global Pop - A comparative study of pop fans in the Netherlands and Hong Kong' □ Joost de Bruin: 'Young Soap Opera Viewers and Performances of the Self'

• Most interesting YouTube playlist discovery: Screening Room with Robert Gardner including clips from interviews with Jean Rouch (see below), Jonas Mekas, Hollis Frampton, Yvonne Rainer, Les Blank and Caroline Leaf

  Screening Room was a 1970s Boston television series that for almost ten years offered independent filmmakers a chance to show and discuss their work on a commercial (ABC-TV) affiliate station. The series was developed and hosted by filmmaker Robert Gardner (Dead Birds, Forest of Bliss), who was Chairman of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and Director of the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard for many years. This unique program dealt even-handedly with animation, documentary, and
  experimental film, welcoming such artists as Jan Lenica, John and Faith Hubley, Emile DeAntonio, Jean Rouch, Ricky Leacock, Jonas Mekas, Bruce Baillie, Yvonne Rainer and Michael Snow. Thirty episodes have been edited for release as DVDs. Visit Robert Gardner's personal website for further information: www.robertgardner.net)