393: Cinema Novo

Archival Spaces 393: The Reception of Cinema Novo in America Uploaded 20 February 2026 A year ago, on 14 February 2025, Carlos Diegues, one of the best-known directors of the Cinema Novo movement, died in Rio de Janeiro at the age of eighty-four. The young Brazilian film directors who, in the early 1960s, joined togetherContinue reading “393: Cinema Novo”

392:  Czech Silent Cinema

Archival Spaces 392 Czech Silent Film History Uploaded 6 February 2026 Back in Summer 2023 (Blog 326), I wrote about a Czech film playing at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, The Organist at St. Vitus Cathedral (1929), directed by Jan S. Kolár. It is an amazingly atmospheric melodrama, shot mostly in real locations aroundContinue reading “392:  Czech Silent Cinema”

391: People On Sunday

Archival Spaces 391 Monograph: People On Sunday Uploaded 23 January 2026 For years, I have been teaching a German film history course. One of the films I have consistently screened is Robert Siodmak’s Menschen am Sonntag/People on Sunday (1929), not only because it is my favorite film of the late Weimar Republic, but also becauseContinue reading “391: People On Sunday”

390: United States Information Agency

Archival Spaces 390 My Short Government Career Uploaded 9 January 2026 In the Fall of 1987, I received a call from David Paul, a producer at the United States Information Agency, asking if I could compile for them a list of German Academy Award winners. No problem. He followed up with a letter a monthContinue reading “390: United States Information Agency”