New Streaming Database: Docuseek
Introducing Docuseek
Docuseek streams essential independent, social-issue and environmental films to colleges, universities and K-12 schools, providing exclusive access to content from renowned leaders in documentary film distribution, including Icarus Films, Women Make Movies, and Kartemquin Films.
New Releases in Documentary
THE FIVE DEMANDS is a riveting story about the student strike that changed the face of higher education forever. In April 1969, a small group of Black and Puerto Rican students shut down the City College of New York, an elite public university located in the heart of Harlem. Through archival footage and modern-day interviews, we follow the students’ struggle against the institutional racism that, for over a century, had shut out people of color from this and other public universities.
Documentary Classics
Docuseek includes classic documentaries like THE BATTLE OF CHILE (1975, Icarus Films). 'Not only the best film about Allende and the coup d'etat, but among the best documentary films ever made, changing our concepts of political documentary within a framework accessible to the widest audience.' -Time Out Film Guide
Women Make Movies
Part of the Women Make Movies collection, THE ARCHIVETTES (2018) explores the fascinating history of The Lesbian Herstory Archives. Founded in the 1970s in a New York City apartment, The Lesbian Herstory Archives is now the world’s largest collection of materials by and about lesbians. For more than 40 years, the all-volunteer organization has striven to combat lesbian invisibility by literally rescuing history from the trash.
Featured Database Package - ProQuest Arts Premium
The library has a subscription to ProQuest Arts Premium, which includes Art/Design/Architecture, Music/Performing Arts, and Screen Studies collections. Search them together or individually using the links below.
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FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals DatabaseThis database is an essential reference work for any film researcher and contains a diverse range of specialist content: the International Index to Film Periodicals contains over 500,000 article citations from more than 345 periodicals. It offers in-depth coverage of the world's foremost academic and popular film journals, many of which are seamlessly linked to a growing library of film journals.
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Film Index InternationalProduced in collaboration with the British Film Institute (bfi), Film Index International is based on the Summary of Film and Television (SIFT) database collated by the bfi over the past 70 years. Film Index International provides in-depth indexing of over 125,000 films - from the first silent movies to the latest blockbusters - and biographical information for more than 800,000 personalities. Its rich content also includes coverage of international film awards and prizes as well as searchable plot summaries and full cast and crew lists.
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AFI Catalog
Since 1968, the American Film Institute as cataloged every American motion picture either produced in the United States or sponsored and financed by American companies as an aid to the preservation of the American national film heritage. To date, the Catalog has comprehensive coverage of feature films from 1911-1974 (that are 40 minutes or longer in duration, or 4 reels or longer in length) with additional records covering selected major films from 1975 onwards, along with over 17,000 short films (those less than 40 minutes or 4 reels) from the first era of filmmaking, 1893–1910.
Finding DVDs in the library
The library's DVD collection is held behind the Circulation Desk on the 1st floor and is not accessible to patrons. Use the spreadsheet here to browse our collection; be sure to click the link to OneSearch to check availability before visiting the library. You can also search for DVDs by title directly in OneSearch.
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DVD and Video ListA spreadsheet export from the library catalog listing films on DVD or VHS held by the Graduate Center library.
General Library Resources
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Graduate Center Library WebsiteStarting point for finding books, articles, journals, databases, interlibrary loan, electronic reference, and more
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OneSearchOneSearch combines many initial searches into one interface: it includes print books from all CUNY libraries; Graduate Center ebooks; a massive index of articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers; Graduate Center course reserves; dissertations at CUNY and beyond; and unique digital content.
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Interlibrary LoanNeed an article from a journal not at the Graduate Center? Need a book that not available from any CUNY library? Go here to submit an interlibrary loan request.
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24/7 E-mail and Chat ReferenceUse this service to ask questions at any time. Email questions will be answered by Graduate Center librarians. Chat questions may be answered by librarians at other institutions.
Visiting Other Libraries
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Other CUNY LibrariesAll CUNY students and faculty have access to all CUNY libraries and may check out books at all but CUNY Law. Reference books, special collections, audiovisual materials, and electronic resources may be used only within these libraries.
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Metro Referral CardsAsk at the reference desk on the second floor of the Graduate Center library for one-time-only passes to New York City area libraries, beyond CUNY.
If items are available at a CUNY library, you would use CLICs (Inter-library borrowing) or visit that library in person; Metro Cards are used for one-time to access beyond CUNY's collections. For longer access, see MaRLI above. -
MaRLI (Manhattan Research Library Initiative)This research initiative allows selected researchers access and circulation privileges at Columbia University, New York University, and New York Public Library's research libraries.
Film and Television Archives in New York City
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Anthology Film Archives
Anthology holds invaluable collections of avant-garde films and videos, housing, protecting, and preserving works on 35mm, 16mm, and Regular- and Super-8mm film, and on various video formats, as well as film stills and audio recordings. -
MoMA Film Study Center
The Celeste Bartos International Film Study Center offers screening facilities for viewing films from the Museum’s collection; a large selection of screenplays and dialogue continuities; extensive files of reviews, articles, and program notes; reference books; special collections; film indexes; and current periodicals. -
Moving Image and Recorded Sound Archive (NYPL Schomburg)
The Moving Image and Recorded Sound (MIRS) Division documents the experiences of peoples of African descent, as they have been captured via audiovisual technology. The MIRS Division collections encompass a variety of formats including motion picture film (released prints and outtakes), video recordings, and music, and spoken arts recordings in several formats. -
Museum of the Moving Image
Museum of the Moving Image houses artifacts from every stage of producing, promoting, and exhibiting motion pictures, television, and digital media—more than 130,000 objects in all. Holdings include licensed merchandise, technical apparatus, still photographs, production design materials, costumes, fan magazines, publicity materials, and video and computer games. -
NYPL Reserve Film and Video Collection
The Reserve Film and Video Collection includes more than 6,000 16mm films, 5,000 VHS videocassettes, and 2,000 DVDs. The New York Public Library began acquiring films in 1952, and established a film department at the Donnell Library in 1958. The library began adding videos to the collection in the 1970s. Since the collection's inception, its primary focus has been independently produced works. Careful selection practices have resulted in a collection that is impressive for its scope and depth and its overall high quality. The collection's holdings provide a very broad spectrum of both subject matter and filmmaking styles and genres. It is unique among American public libraries, and is comparable to archives held within major American museums and universities. Particular strengths of the collection are its political, social, and cultural documentaries; experimental films; video art; animation; short fictional works; and films and videos created by and for children and young adults.
Featured Collection
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Media History Digital LibraryThe Media History Digital Library is a non-profit initiative, led by Eric Hoyt at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, dedicated to digitizing historic books and magazines about film, broadcasting, and recorded sound for broad public access.
Coming Soon
New titles currently on order, arriving soon to the Mina Rees Library!
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Antifascism and the Avant-Garde
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From the publisher: Leftist filmmakers of the 1960s revolutionized the art of documentary. Often inspired by the radical art of the Soviet 1920s, filmmakers in countries like France and Japan dared to make film form a powerful weapon in the fight against fascism, weaving fiction into nonfiction and surrealism with neorealism to rupture everyday ways of being, seeing, and thinking. Includes careful readings of Matsumoto Toshio, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, Agnès Varda, Hani Susumu, and others.
ISBN: 9780520415669Publication Date: 2025-02-25 -
Barbara Hammer in the Seventies
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From the publisher: Barbara Hammer in the Seventies: Or, What a Body Can Do addresses the intersection of experimental film, lesbian sexuality, and the women's movement in Hammer's early films. This rereading of Hammer's work offers an important contribution to conversations between feminism and queer studies. In remembering the feminist origins of queer studies, it recenters political and ethical questions such as the fundamental relationality of the subject, the subject's dependency on others, and the resulting ethical responsibility for and towards the other.
ISBN: 9783031596940Publication Date: 2025-01-14 -
The Bloomsbury Handbook of North Korean Cinema
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From the publisher: This handbook provides a solid and diverse foundation for the expanding scholarship on North Korean cinema. It is also a road map for connecting this field to broader issues in film and media studies: film history, affect and ideology, genre, and transnational cinema cultures. By connecting the worlds of North Korean cinema to broader questions in global cinema studies, this book explores the complexity of a national cinema too often reduced to a single image.
ISBN: 9798765102824Publication Date: 2025-02-20 -
Bollypolitics
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From the publisher: This book provides an in-depth exploration of the evolving landscape of Bollywood cinema in response to recent socio-political changes in India, including a surge in sectarian violence and the ascent of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership. Through a comprehensive analysis of prominent filmmakers and actors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Kangana Ranaut, Akshay Kumar, and Anupam Kher, Ajay Gehlawat elucidates the profound and far-reaching impact of Hindutva ideology on Indian cinematic narratives and aesthetics, while also considering the broader implications for Indian society as a whole.
ISBN: 9781350401921Publication Date: 2026-01-22 -
The Cinema of Extractions
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From the publisher: In this book, Brian Jacobson traces the surprising and inextricable connections between extractive industries and cinema, developing new ways to read films in light of the typically unseen material practices out of which they are built. The Cinema of Extractions explores the ties between the worlds of movies and the materials that make movies possible and between the industries that make movies and the industries that use movies to reshape the world. Jacobson retells the history of cinema through the lens of extraction, considering its roots as a material form and its use as a tool for corporate and industrial world making.
ISBN: 9780231213585Publication Date: 2025-02-04 -
A Critical Companion to David Lynch
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From the publisher: This edited volume provides a wide-ranging exploration of Lynch's films, practices, and collaborations, with nineteen original chapters examining themes including narrativity, aesthetics, artistry, sound, experimentation, metafiction, and patriarchy from the disciplinary perspectives of film studies, art studies, gender studies, literary studies, and philosophy. Lynch's entire thought-provoking oeuvre, spanning over fifty years, will be examined, including his shorts and films, animations, TV series, paintings, and commercials.
ISBN: 9781666928105Publication Date: 2024-12-04 -
The Revolution of Indian Parallel Cinema in the Global South (1968-1995)
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From the publisher: Drawing from over a decade of research and writings, this book takes you on an epic journey through the history of Indian Parallel Cinema (1968 - 1995). From auteurs like Mani Kaul and John Abraham to Smita Patil and Om Puri, The Revolution of Indian Parallel Cinema in the Global South explores the origins, evolution, demise and legacy of a film movement that produced a pantheon of innovative filmmakers, in excess of two hundred films and a distinctly regional identity in which film societies, state funding and political insurgency were catalysts for a defiant, radical dialogue, much of it anti-establishment, that broke all the rules. Most importantly, this publication considers the ways in which Parallel Cinema narrated a new 'history from below', using a range of case studies that includes Uski Roti, Mirch Masala and Amma Ariyan.
ISBN: 9798765101018Publication Date: 2025-02-20 -
The Routledge Companion to American Film History
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From the publisher: Rather than follow a chronological format, as with most film histories, this Companion offers a multiplicity of approaches to historiography and is arranged according to often underdeveloped or overlooked areas in American film, including topics such as alternate archives, hidden labor, histories of style, racialized technologies, cinema's material cultures, spectators and fans, transnational film production, intermedial histories, history in and about films, and the historical afterlives of cinema. An exciting collection for serious film studies students and scholars interested in new perspectives and fresh approaches to thinking about and doing American film history.
ISBN: 9781032610283Publication Date: 2025-02-12 -
Transnational Cinema Solidarity
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From the publisher: After the 1973 coup that put an end to the socialist government of Salvador Allende, most Chilean filmmakers went into exile. Dispersed all over the world, they made more than two hundred fiction films, documentaries, animations, videos, and works for television. José Miguel Palacios builds upon extensive archival research to trace a transnational history of this radical cinema, beginning with its emergence out of global solidarity networks in the 1970s. Chronicling the dangerous efforts to smuggle film reels out of Chile, the discourses of political cinema these films inspired as they traveled between film festivals, and the prints' unfinished process of return to Chilean archives and museums over the past two decades, Transnational Cinema Solidarity offers a politicized understanding of world and transnational cinema that emphasizes geopolitical relations and cinematic alliances based on solidarity.
ISBN: 9780520410237Publication Date: 2025-04-22 -
Where Is Abbas Kiarostami?
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From the publisher: When Abbas Kiarostami suddenly passed away in July 2016, he was already an iconic figure in world cinema--and his reputation as a master filmmaker has only grown since. In this book, celebrated scholar Hamid Dabashi offers a new way of looking at Kiarostami's artworld, one that questions the very idea of film philosophy. Dabashi's authoritative account of the philosophical resonances of Kiarostami's oeuvre offers an iconoclastic critique of the field's Eurocentrism and, in vivid prose, makes the case for a new method of appreciating the work of this essential figure. The result is a provocative perspective on the totality of Kiarostami's legacy that, with deep roots in Iranian aesthetic and Persian poetic and philosophical traditions, overcomes film's provincial preoccupation with its Western heritage and charts a new path forward for film-philosophy.
ISBN: 9780520397170Publication Date: 2025-02-04
