La règle du jour

Next week’s screenings (January 14 and 19) of French filmmaker Jean Renoir’s masterpiece The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu) at BAMPFA provide a rare opportunity to enjoy the 35mm print of this film on the big screen in its state of the art facilities. The screenings of the 1939 film, regarded by many as one of the best films ever made, also provide an opportunity to inform you of library resources like Kanopy – an on-demand streaming video service which provides access to more than 26,000 films – allowing the UCB community to watch movies on anywhere in lieu of the viewing stations in Moffitt Library’s Media Resources Center. An online database of BAMPFA’s extensive collection of film documentation called CineFiles makes it easy to pull up reviews and other information on major filmmakers. Article databases such as FIAF, Film and Television Literature Index, and the MLA International Bibliography can help you locate scholarly articles on Jean Renoir and other figures of world cinema. For readers of French, Cairn.info – an online collection of more than 400 French and Belgian journals – is a quick way to retrieve full-text articles instantly. And lastly, if you’re just looking for good old-fashioned paper books, the Library has more than 183 of those in OskiCat on Jean Renoir alone.


Movies @ Moffitt, Apr 6: Poverty, Inc.

Sillohuettes of workers in field near tree

The Movies @ Moffitt series features films selected by students for students, on the first Wednesday of each month.

Title:Poverty, Inc.

Director:Michael Matheson Miller

Length: 91 Minutes

Synopsis: Poverty, Inc. unearths an uncomfortable side of charity we can no longer ignore. From U.S. agricultural subsidies to international adoptions and TOMs Shoes, the film challenges each of us to ask the tough question: Could I be part of the problem?

Date: Wednesday, April 6.

Time: Doors open at 6:30pm, and the film starts at 7:00pm.

Place: 150D Moffitt Library

A UCB student ID is required for entry, and the event is free. Light refreshments served.

[video:vimeo: 109863354]

Post contributed by Tim Dilworth, First Year Coordinator, The Library


Lube Job: Movies @ Moffitt, Mar 2

Photo of Oil Field in Ocean, By Andyminicooper (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Movies @ Moffitt series features films selected by students for students, on the first Wednesday of each month. This month’s selection, Lube Job, will play on March 2nd.

Title: Lube Job

Director: Guy Hernandez

Length: 58 Minutes

Synopsis: Lube Job is an in-depth look at Louisiana’s century-old relationship with oil and gas, and the resulting environmental catastrophe devastating its treasured wetlands and age old way of life.

When: Wednesday, March 2. Doors open at 6:30pm, and the film starts at 7:00pm.

Where: 150D Moffitt Library

A UCB student ID is required for entry, and the event is free. Light refreshments served.


Post contributed by Tim Dilworth, First Year Coordinator, The Library


Edith Kramer, Director Emeritus of the Pacific Film Archive

This week UC Berkeley proudly opens the new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive building in downtown Berkeley. As our contribution to the celebrations, we are thrilled to release our interview with Edith Kramer, Emeritus Senior Film Curator and Director Pacific Film Archive.

Kramer has been associated with the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive since 1975 when she joined the staff as Assistant Film Curator. In June 2003, the University of California, Berkeley, awarded Ms. Kramer The Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award. Ms. Kramer holds an M.A. in Art History from Harvard University, and a B.A. in Art History from the University of Michigan. She has taught film history at the University of Oregon, UC Davis, and the San Francisco Art Institute. Upon arriving in the Bay Area in 1967, she managed Canyon Cinema Cooperative and was instrumental in the founding of Canyon Cinematheque (now the San Francisco Cinematheque); and she served as Film Curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

In this interview, Kramer discusses the growth of film curation as a profession, the establishment and growth of the Pacific Film Archive, and the transformation of film curation as a result of changes in technology and distribution. Moreover, she details the films that were most influential to her and how she brought those films to audiences in Berkeley and beyond.


Lunch Love Community tells story of Berkeley food advocates, Movies @Moffitt

Large bowl of salad

The Movies@Moffitt series features films selected by students for students, on the first Wednesday of each month. This month’s selection, Lunch Love Community, will play on February 3rd at 6:30pm.

Film: Lunch Love Community

Director: Helen De Michiel

Synopsis: Lunch Love Community is the engaging story of how a diverse group of pioneering parents and food advocates came together to tackle food reform and food justice in the schools and neighborhoods of Berkeley.

How are innovators changing the way children eat in schools? How do we talk about culture, identity and responsibility through the lens of food and health?

When: Wednesday, February 3. Doors open at 6:30pm, and the film starts at 7:00pm.

Where: 150D Moffitt Library

A UCB student ID is required for entry, and the event is free. Light refreshments served.


Post contributed by Tim Dilworth, First Year Coordinator, The Library


Arrested History: New Portuguese Cinema @ PFA

A última vez que vi Macau

November 13, 2013 – November 17, 2013

Portuguese cinema has long been noted for its formal audacity and inventiveness. Yet it is only recently that filmmakers have begun to interrogate the dark period of Portuguese history that ended in 1974, after four decades of dictatorship and the Colonial War. The films highlighted in this series consider these historic events and their ongoing ramifications with intelligence and imagination, often straddling fiction and documentary forms.  Read more about the film program, which includes talks with the directors, on the BAM/PFA web site.


database trial to L’Harmatheque

L'Harmathèque

Through its membership in the Center for Research Libraries and more specifically CIFNAL, the  Library has trial access to L’Harmathèque – a large collection of French language ebooks, articles, films and audio files – through Wednesday, May 1.

Collection Content
L’Harmathèque’s multimedia platform offers ebooks, articles, videos, and audio recordings on many subjects in the humanities and social sciences. The content of the ebooks comes from a variety of French publishing imprints, including L’Harmattan, Pagala, Odin, IXE, etc.  A full list of included titles can be downloaded in excel.

Currently the platform contains more than 26,000 ebooks, 17,000 articles, 400 films, and 600 audio files available. At least 2,300 new titles are added to the collection annually (the publishers estimate that around 230 ebook titles are added monthly). This impressive number of ebooks covers a wide range of subject areas in the humanities and social sciences, novels, and children’s books.

According to the description provided on the web site, article content is from journals and book chapters, although no further selection criteria are given. The videos are primarily documentaries and theatrical productions. The audio collection includes many audiobooks, in a variety of languages.

Delivery
The interface is in French. In the portals, ebooks are divided by subject into browsable bouquets. An advanced search option allows the user to narrow down the large amount of content.

Ebooks can be read either on the platform’s online reader (which requires Flash), or downloaded and read using the free Adobe Digital Editions reader.  Viewing the videos requires the use of DivX and  the audio content is also available through Flash.