Dates:
1918-1988
Description:

“A collection of international documentary, newsreel and feature films reveals the world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, and Latin American filmmakers.”

Socialism on Film is a streaming video collection comprised of 20th century documentaries, newsreels, and feature films created in the communist world and later modified with English language enhancements for distribution to Western audiences.

All 2,000 films come from 16mm and 35mm reels held in the ETV-Plato Films collection which was donated to British Film Institute (BFI) archives in 2003 by British communist Stanley Forman.

Adam Matthew Digital intends to release Socialism on Film in three thematic modules: Wars & Revolutions and Newsreels & Cinemagazines (both live), and Culture & Society (coming in 2019). The product also includes a Chronology, an interactive world Map, and additional secondary resources designed to provide historical context for the films.  

The product’s streaming interface allows for linking, embedding, clip-making, and play-list making, and provides a searchable text transcript and rich metadata for each film.

For more details on the origins of this resource, see product note on Nature & Scope.

Materials Indexed: Films, Video Database Type: Archival Collections, Video Collection Interface Language: English Materials Language: Various with English Subject: Caribbean Studies, Communication, East Asian Studies, Economics, Film & Media Studies, Global & International Studies, Global Peace & Security, History (World), Latin American & Iberian Studies, News Sources, Political Science, Primary Sources, Russian, Slavic Studies Broad Category: Area Studies, Arts, Humanities, Multidisciplinary, Social Sciences