Sources (page under construction)

For older movies, when working forward from 1895, it is essential to give some credit where credit is due. Both for the research done, but also for making films available by digitalizing them.

Unfortunately, most archives keep their material closed and do not want to share it, neither for getting credit or linkage, and to order it or getting permission they make it cost a lot. The material is arguably in the public domain, but the digitalization of it is not always so. I still strive to use non-copyright material, and remove those that does not match that criteria.

I try to be fair, and thus, contact the places that state their copyright, and none has agreed to give me permission to use even screenshots from their material. This is very sad, as it prevents the spread of information, especially visual content on visual media what this site is about. I decided thus not to link to the archives that are stingy(although this can change), but rather list them here as a resource for others to consider.

For early Gaumont and Pathé, digital films and information, GP archives have films for viewing with a timestamp and watermark if you manage to get access. They also have a filmography of their films, in addition to the digital archive. For Pathé only You got Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé who holds both a collection of images and documents and a filmography. For Lumière, there is no better source than Catalogue Lumiere for movies between 1895 and 1905. Another french source is le grimh that tries to gather information of all films from 1896 to 1906.

Moving to Great Brittain, there is no match to what British Film Institute(BFI) does. They have a streaming platform that will work with some VPN's, but also a collections database of all the films. Also up still, is the old site of screenonline.

Moving to America, there is mainly American Film Institute (AFI) with their comprehensice AFI Catalog. Here it is also worth to mention a few of the old magazines that can be found and accessed at the Internet Archive, but maybe even better at the Media History Digital Library, Lantern that have done great work in making most of the magazines searchable. There are also a log of material to be found in the Library of Congress (LoC), and a lesser amount of especially film negatives can be found at George Eastman Museum. For Jewish film, there is no better source than The National Center for Jewish Film.

In Germany, you have filmportal.de and The German Early Cinema Database, in Denmark Det Danske Filminstitut, and in Norway the Norwegian Film Institute.

Other noteworty blogs and sites:
L’ANTIQUITÉ AU CINÉMA: A book by Hervé Dumont listing most biblical films.
Bible Films Blog: Matt Page blog about bible films.
Century Film Project: Michael watches and reviews movies that have existed for over 100 years.
The Bioscope: Online archive of a no more supported early films blog.
Films by the Year: Dan Willard watches every film from every year from the beginning of film.
Silent Era: News and information about silent era films.