This page continues to be something of a work-in-progress and ongoing updating will progressively widen its scope. The aim is to remain selective about content and to keep the focus on sources of information about world cinema and systems of distribution and exhibition that operate outside the dominant mainstream with all its promotional tools.

Your own tastes and interests will inform your views on what new links should be added or which existing ones could be removed. Your feedback to date has been valuable and we look forward to more of it, so please keep sending comments and suggestions to: info@accesscinema.ie.

In the meantime, many of the sites in the current selection already contain a broader range of links - check out The British Film Institute’s Film Links Gateway and Senses of Cinema’s links, for example.

Resources and Databases
Current News and Information
Magazines / Journals
Directors
Critics
Cultural / Film Organisations
Festivals
World Cinema

Resources and Databases

Film Institute of Ireland This steadily expanding site provides information about all of this national body’s activities and departments, which include The Irish Film Archive and fiieducation. You can browse the IFC Cinemas page for current programme listings and film notes, or search the listings archive by date or title for archived notes.

Irish Film & Television Net (IFTN) This ambitious site works hard to sustain its claim to be the most comprehensive directory ever produced on the Irish film and television industry. The principal focus is on production, which influences the take on distribution and exhibition, but this is a useful uncritical informational and promotional tool for the entire audiovisual sector with regularly updated news pages that are always worth checking out.

British Board of Film Classification A commendable, useful site that contains information on the BBFC’s history and policy as well as news and recent decisions listed by date classified, with particulars that include distributor and expected release date.

The British Film Institute Progressively being made easier to navigate, this site contains a wealth of information in extensive sections incorporating features on film-makers whose films have been re-issued by the bfi, films now showing pages, and sight and sound pages with current and archived sample features and reviews from the printed magazine and full details of the outcome of the 2002 edition of its once-a-decade international directors’ and critics’ Top Ten Poll.

The Film Society of Lincoln Centre (filmlinc) Exemplary in terms of its unfussy, lucid design, this site chronicles the Film Society’s special events and seasons as well as its New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films series. Excerpts from Film Comment magazine are published online and the filmlinc.com archive contains articles from past issues as well as programme notes from past festivals and seasons.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) With roots in a 1990 hobby project developed by an international group of movie fans, IMDb has evolved into an amazon.com company which provides access to an unmatched relational database of films and cast and crew filmographies. Simple to search and cross-reference, it also provides useful links to features like external reviews and awards and nominations for the films catalogued.

Movie Review Query Engine (MRQE) A handy, no nonsense resource that is easy to access and search by title for links to reviews from a wide range of international sources that includes a few that IMDb doesn’t have in its index.

All Movie Guide Check this out for plot synopses and biographical notes that are often considerably better and more opinionated than those on the IMDb.

Rotten Tomatoes Behind this site’s tongue in cheek "tomatometer", which rates reviews on a scale from fresh to rotten, there is a very impressive database of recent and upcoming movies with extensive content that is searchable by title or person. Individual movie pages contain useful overviews and lively, capsulised bite-sized quotes from a wide range of reviewers with links to full reviews.

Greg’s Previews of Upcoming Movies Greg Schmitz’s formerly self-published site, upcomingmovies.com, is now a feature of Yahoo! Movies. But Greg promises to maintain the individual spirit and personality of the original and to cover the gamut from blockbusters to independent and art house cinema that will get a US release.

Current News and Information

IndieWIRE An online publication exclusively covering specialised cinema and independent film-making, indieWIRE is attuned to American indies in particular, but it provides an array of global news and information, with wide festival coverage, reviews, interviews, fairly regular, thoughtful World Cinema Reports (from a U.S. perspective), now mostly by Anthony Kaufman.

Screendaily.com Published from the same stable as trade paper Screen International, this European based daily online news service is currently accessible free of charge and contains breaking global film industry news, with some Irish coverage by Ted Sheehy, as well as good coverage from leading film festivals and advance film reviews.

Guardian Unlimited Film Regularly updated with a wide range of material from the pages of both The Guardian and The Observer. Use the internal links at the top of the home page to navigate to individual pages for News, Reviews, Features and Interviews.

BBC – Films If you are not using the internal search engine here for something specific and you are tiring of yet another "entertainment page", click on any of its news items to take you to more sober BBC News pages with useful breaking news updates. But check out Alex Cox’s weekly A Director’s Diary first.

Magazines / Journals

Kinoeye A fortnightly online journal that covers the film cultures of the emerging new, potentially more integrated Europe and attempts to bring attention to its neglected central, eastern and southeastern "fringes". Search archives by English film title, say, for access CINEMA presentations like No Man’s Land and Divided We Fall or browse country archives for background information.

Senses of Cinema An accessible, extremely well- designed and self-styled "serious" bi-monthly Australian online journal that stays outside the mainstream to champion what is innovative, challenging, personal and under-recognised in the art of cinema.

The Village Voice The New York alternative newsweekly prides itself on the quality of its writers, its no-holds barred reporting and the journalistic freedom that non-mainstream status offers its critics who include staff writer J. Hoberman and contributor Amy Taubin. Archived articles are searchable and free.

Directors

Film Directors Articles on the Internet Recently relaunched at a new address and regularly updated and expanded by its English creator, Steve Masters, this is a worthwhile site containing links to a wide range of articles on an eclectic selection of some 240 or so directors.

Pedro Almodóvar Use the links at the top of the English home page on this "official website" to take you to biographical information ("The Autor") and Films pages with "Comments of Pedro". Sticking with the Talk to Her/Habla con ella links gets you to a self interview and extensive "according to Almodóvar" pages on his latest film.

Alex Cox This combative film-maker uses the internet as a battlefield where he vehemently but wittily expresses views on his corporate enemies and the iniquities of the film business and discusses his idiosyncratic films, from Repo Man to Revengers Tragedy.

The Kaurismäki Web Site An impressive site dedicated to the films of Aki and Mika Kaurismäki that is worth checking out, particularly in the run-up to the forthcoming release of Aki’s and actress Kati Outinen's Cannes prize-winning The Man Without a Past.

Critics

Chicago Reader The Chicago Reader provides limited free online access to a selection of recent long reviews and an excerpt from Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Conspire to Limit What Films We Can See by its film critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum, a recent guest lecturer at the Irish Film Centre.

Roger Ebert This Chicago Sun-Times columnist’s page has links to his current reviews and his features (interviews – essays – festivals). Archived reviews are searchable and free.

Cultural / Film Organisations

The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon

Bord Scannán na hÉireann / The Irish Film Board

Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission

International Federation of Film Societies

Festivals

August – September

Dublin Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 1 – 5 August 2002
Locarno International Film Festival 1 – 11 August 2002
Edinburgh International Film Festival 14 – 25 August 2002
Sarajevo Film Festival 16 – 24 August 2002
Telluride Film Festival 29 August – 1 September 2002
Toronto International Film Festival 5 – 14 September 2002
Donostia – San Sebastian International Film Festival 19 – 28 September 2002
Venice: 59th Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica 28 August – 7 September 2002

October – November

Cork Film Festival 6 – 13 October 2002
Pusan International Film Festival 14 - 23 November 2002
Budweiser Foyle Film Festival 22 November – 1 December 2002
Regus London Film Festival 6 – 21 November 2002

World Cinema

Iran

Farabi Cinema Foundation (FCF)
The Iranian
Makhmalbaf Film House

South Korea

The Korean Film Page
Korean Film Commission (KOFIC)

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