Author Archives: cstirling

New to the Library: BFI Player

Posted on by
Reply

*The Library now has full 1 year access (until 30 Sept 2024) to BFI Player via a deal with JISC. You can access it from our Databases A-Z list, Film Studies databases list, Video Resources A-Z and DiscoverEd. Note if you already had a BFI Player account linked to our pilot subscription before 1 Oct 2023, you will need to relink your account following instructions given at the above access points.*

We are happy to let you know that the Library has a pilot subscription to the fabulous BFI Player, a video on demand service from the British Film Institute (BFI). Access is available to us until the end of August 2023.

BFI Player streams acclaimed, landmark and archived films. Reflecting the BFI’s wider cultural mission the focus is on British and European independent films but it does also include international releases. And it allows you to access classic and cult films from across the decades. Continue reading →

Behind the Lens: LGBT+ History Month

Posted on by
Reply

February is LGBT+ History Month and this year’s theme is #BehindThe Lens. This aims to celebrate “LGBT+ peoples’ contribution to cinema and film from behind the lens. Directors, cinematographers, screen writers, producers, animators, costume designers, special effects, make up artists, lighting directors, musicians, choreographers and beyond.” (LGBT+ History Month, 2023)

To help you learn more we’ve pulled together just a small selection of Library resources that will allow you to start to look ‘Behind the Lens’.

Books and more books (we are a Library after all)
Films, TV, documentaries, etc.
Doing your own research

Books and more books (we are a Library after all)

Front cover of 'The Oxford Handbook of Queery Cinema'.Why not start with The Oxford handbook of queer cinema as an introduction. This hefty tome covers a wide variety of topics including silent and classical Hollywood films, European and American independent and art films, post-Stonewall and New Queer Cinema, global queer cinema and new queer voices and forms.

New queer cinema: A critical reader considers the filmmakers, the geography, and the audience of New Queer Cinema. While Queer cinema in Europe brings together case studies of key films and filmakers in this area. Sapphism on screen: Lesbian desire in French and Francophone cinema focuses even more specifically on films made by male and female directors working in France and other French-speaking parts of the world. In a queer time and place: Transgender bodies, subcultural lives is the first full-length study of transgender representations in film but also art, fiction, video and music. Whereas LGBTQ film festivals: Curating queerness pays homage to the labour of queer organisers, critics and scholars. Continue reading →

The Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery: primary sources

Posted on by
Reply

For over 400 years, more than 15 million men, women and children were victims of the transatlantic slave trade. And on 25th March every year, the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade offers the opportunity to honour and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system, while also raising awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today.

At the Library we have access to a range of digital resources that give you access to original primary source material from archives around the world that allow you to find out more about the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the victims of slavery. These are a few that you might like to explore:

Slavery: supporters and abolitionists, 1675-1865
(also known as Slavery Through Time: from Enslavers to Abolitionists, 1675-1865)

Continue reading →