Free online platforms for experimental film
Where to watch experimental film and video art for free and some other resources for more mainstream genres
If you’re interested in experimental film, video art, and related fields, one of the main problems is that it’s hard to find a lot of the films. Most of the works aren’t available on streaming platforms, DVDs, or any other medium, not even on torrent sites. You may find crappy copies on YouTube or some suspicious website with a download link, but most of the time when you read about some film that sounds great you won’t find it anywhere.
Another problem related to this one is that usually cinematheques—at least where I live—don’t show many experimental films, let alone media art, so it's unlikely that they show by chance one of those experimental films on your watchlist. Some festivals and museums organise screenings from time to time, but depending on where you live you won't have any nearby, and in any case, it's unlikely that they'll show the exact film you were looking for.
Thanks to the internet, nowadays things are easier to find than 30 years ago, but in terms of distribution and availability, experimental film and video art are a long, long way from more ‘traditional’ films. Many experimental films have never been released in any domestic format, or they’re prohibitively expensive. The reasons are complex, but today I’m not here to write about those issues, I’m here to offer you a list of online platforms where you can watch experimental films for free.
This idea came to me when the other day I asked on Twitter about experimental film archives that are online and free. I’m a filmmaker and a writer, so I know a lot of related websites, but most of them offer just information, not films. As the Internet is huge and I don’t know everything I thought that it was worth asking. My intention wasn’t to write anything about it, but a lot of people answered and I thought that I should compile a list in a more accessible location than a Twitter thread.
Some of the answers weren’t specifically about experimental film, I include those at the end because you may find them also useful. You can check the original Tweet with all the answers on Twitter. Thank you very much to all the people who answered my question.
Where to watch experimental films
General archives
Light Cone: A nonprofit organization that distributes, promotes, and preserves experimental cinema. They’re from France, but they also distribute films from other countries. Not all of their films are online, but they have an archive with preview copies of hundreds of films.
UbuWeb: A lot of filmmakers and artists. In general, the quality of the films is not very good because many of them are digitalised VHS tapes, etc., but some of the works included are impossible to find anywhere else.
Hamaca: Focused on preserving, distributing, and promoting films and videos from Spain—where I’m from. It’s mainly a distribution platform, but most films in its catalogue are available to watch online.
Plat: It includes filmmakers from Spain and Latin America. It’s not a streaming site, most of the videos are embedded from the personal Vimeo accounts of the artists, but it’s a good resource if you’re interested in contemporary Spanish and Latin American experimental film.
Archives of well-known filmmakers
Lillian F. Schwartz: This one is her personal website, where you can watch most—maybe all, but I’m not sure—of her films.
Len Lye: An archive from Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, the New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound. It includes more than 20 films by Lye.
Shigeji Ogino: An experimental filmmaker from Japan, he made one of the first flicker films.
Jim Jennings: An American experimental filmmaker and photographer.
Joseph Bernard: He made over 100 silent, super-8mm films during the 1970s and 1980s.
Robert Todd: He made mainly short poetic experimental films.
Margaret Tait: She was a Scottish filmmaker and poet.
Websites with online screenings
Xcèntric: A huge archive that includes films from all around the world. Their archive is not online, but every month, for a limited time, they share a film from their catalogue with an in-depth presentation.
Ecstatic Static: They host regular online screenings of artists’ films and videos, both new and rare, that may otherwise have a limited release.
Another Screen: They show films by women. Their programmes are ephemeral, so you won’t be able to watch some of the films included in the older programmes.
The Kitchen: They offer, among other things, presentations of recent and archival videos and films.
Seeing Sound: A symposium exploring multimedia work focused on the relationship between sound and image. They only have online the screenings from 2020.
Other resources that are not free
VUCAVU: Canadian film and video art. They offer some free screenings from time to time, but it’s mainly a pay-per-view platform.
Sedition: They sell contemporary digital art. If you want to buy something is not free, but they include watermarked previews of the videos, so it’s a good place to watch artworks by digital artists.
Other resources not focused on experimental
The National Film Board of Canada: Is not exclusively about experimental film, but it includes some of the classics, among them Norman McLaren, Arthur Lipsett, Pierre Hébert, Evelyn Lambart, etc.
Eye: An extensive Dutch film archive including many experimental films. Not all of them are online, but you can watch around 100 experimental films here.
Aflamuna: A non-profit streaming platform for independent Arab cinema. To watch the films you have to create an account.
Cinelimite: A non-profit media arts organization dedicated to exhibiting, distributing, and restoring Brazilian cinema. They have an online streaming programme.
Danish Silent Film: The name is self-explanatory. I love Danish cinema, so this is a great discovery, but I don’t think it includes many experimental films.
bynwr: Talking about Danish cinema, the filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn has a free streaming website for rare, forgotten, and unknown films. Here you can watch cult films and read in-depth information about them.
Nowness: A website about art, design, fashion, beauty, music, food, and travel. It may sound a bit unrelated, but they have some video art and experimental films.
Solidarity Cinema: It works via Plex or Google Drive. It’s focused on the left struggle, but it includes many different films, not only ones that are obviously political. Here you’ll find some mainstream filmmakers, but also many authors that are not easy to find online.
Kanopy: Classic cinema, indie and foreign films, and documentaries. To sign-up, you’ll need a card from a participating public library or university. I don’t have any of those things.
eFilm: It’s only for public library users in Spain. It doesn’t include much experimental stuff and it doesn’t work with all Spanish public libraries, but it’s a great free streaming site with lots of mainstream films, classics, documentaries, and TV series.
As an end-note, someone suggested Archive, which I’m sure all of you know. It’s not a film platform, but you can definitely find a lot of stuff there. Besides, you can find hundreds of filmmakers and media artists on the usual video platforms, such as Vimeo and YouTube.
In addition to this post, I’ve created a spreadsheet so that we all can access this information quickly and easily.
Please note that this isn’t a thorough list, I’m sure that there’re many more free online archives and streaming sites for experimental film and media art. If you know more resources, I’ll be delighted to read your suggestions.
See you next week! When I started this newsletter I said that I would write once a month, but I stopped for months because I didn’t have the time and now that I get off work at 3 pm—only during the summer months—I'm making up for all those newsletters I didn't write.
Remember that even if most of these archives are free we artists need to eat, so buy something from an artist you like ;)