KOSMORAMA! Great online resources from the Danish Film Institute

Short films from a small nation - marketing postwar Denmark (13 Nov 2014)

Fifty years before Borgen hit British TV screens, Danish directors were making films for British audiences. Driven by the need to market Danish produce and culture abroad after World War II, the government funded hundreds of short films in many languages, encompassing topics from pensions to bacon to handicrafts.

As the Spring break in the UK beckons, Film Studies For Free sparks back into life with some shorter entries.

The first of these results from some correspondence with Claire Thomson of University College London (who features in the excellent videoed talk, embedded above). Dr Thomson very kindly wrote to FSFF to point it in the direction of the following two online resources from the Danish Film Institute. 

The Danish film journal Kosmorama was established in 1954, and since 2011 has been publishing 4-5 issues a year in online open access format, from its base at the Danish Film Institute in Copenhagen. Most of Kosmorama’s articles are peer-reviewed, but space is also reserved for writing accessible to a wide audience of cinephiles. 

The journal also tries to strike a balance between publishing in English for a global audience, and catering for Scandinavian readers, with articles in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. A clever feature of Kosmorama is its use of embedded film clips, images and documentation to illustrate arguments and analyses. The site also hosts a research blog, which is a place to share news on recent publications and upcoming workshops, lectures, conferences and call for papers, and readers can sign up to a newsletter so as not to miss a single issue. 

Recent content in English includes articles on media in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, metafiction in House of Cards, state-sponsored short films, Mormonism in early Danish cinema, and a theme issue on Body Language in the Moving Image. Article submissions of around 5000 words on any aspect of cinema and television are welcome, and information for potential contributors can be found via Kosmorama’s English homepage: http://www.kosmorama.org/ServiceMenu/05-English.aspx  

The Danish Film Institute is also home to an extensive web resource on the auteur Carl Th. Dreyer.  Carl Th. Dreyer: The Man and His Work combines a growing collection of essays on Dreyer’s life, work and style with an extensively annotated filmography, film clips, stills, posters, and a searchable database of the Dreyer Archive. Whether you want to read about aspects of Dreyer’s style or filmmaking practice, research his correspondence, watch his short films, or find out what  Lars von Trier inherited from Dreyer (answer: some stylistic tricks, and a tailor-made tuxedo), do visit the site here: http://english.carlthdreyer.dk/

Thanks very much to Dr Thomson for these. FSFF readers will be able to find lots of articles online at Kosmorama, but the ones in the latest issue have been listed and are linked to below.

ARTICLES / KOSMORAMA #258 – BODY LANGUAGE IN THE MOVING IMAGE

• BODY LANGUAGE AND MEDIA CONTEXT Lennard Højbjerg
• FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES Casper Tybjerg
• EXPRESSING SUPPRESSION Henry Bacon
• MAKING LOVE DETUMESCENTLY Mariah Larsson
• MOVIE STARS IN THE FLESH Helle Kannik Haastrup