CineFiles is the film document image database of the Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, California. The database comprises reviews, press kits, programme notes, newspaper articles and other documents from the Archive’s library collection. The documents cover world cinema, past and present. Over 25,000 films are represented, and their target figure is 200,000 documents, with more being added daily.

You can search by document (under title, author, date or publisher, or for documents about specific films, people, or subjects) or filmographic data (under title, subject, genre, director, year, country, or studio). There doesn’t seem to be any easy way of isolating silent films (typing in ‘silent’ into the subject field only brings up three titles), so you will have to search by title, director or specific year for the best results.

The collection is particularly strong on Russian and Soviet cinema, so, as an example, the record for Protazanov’s Pikovaia dama (The queen of spades) (1916), erroneously given as a Soviet Union production (in 1916 the country was still Russia), provides the researcher with the following:

Title: Pikovaia dama (The queen of spades)
Director: Protazanov, Iakov Aleksandrovich
Country of Prod.: Soviet Union
Year: 1916
Language: Russian
Production Co.:
Genre: Adaptation, Horror
Subject: Gamblers — Drama, Ghosts — Drama

Related Documents:

1. Silent witnesses — excerpt – Tsivian, Yuri – British Film Institute – 1989 – 3 pages – – book excerpt

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View page images: Pg. 1, Pg. 2, Pg. 3

2. Costumes and classics – – National Film Theatre (London, England) – 1990 Feb 04 – 1 page – – program note

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View page images: Pg. 1

3. Pikovaya dama (the queen of spades) – Borger, Lenny – Variety – 1990 Mar 21 – 1 page – – review

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View page images: Pg. 1

4. Queen of spades – – Mary Pickford Theater (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.) – 1992 Apr – 1 page – – program note

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5. The queen of spades – – Pacific Film Archive – – 2 pages – – program note

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View page images: Pg. 1, Pg. 2

6. The queen of spades – Svolkein, N. – – – 4 pages – – intertitles

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Pg. 1, Pg. 2, Pg. 3, Pg. 4

7. The queen of spades – Svolkein, N. – – – 1 page – – intertitles

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View page images: Pg. 1

8. The queen of spades – Bolotnikov, Vladimir – – – 4 pages – – intertitles

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Pg. 1, Pg. 2, Pg. 3

9. Mosjoukine — excerpt – – – – 3 pages – – book excerpt

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View page images: Pg. 1, Pg. 2, Pg. 3

The page image references are links to GIF or JPEG images of book extracts, programme notes etc. The document search option has some very useful means to narrow a search, including type of document (advertisement, bibliography, book excerpt, correspondence, obituary etc.), and further options are provided to search by documents with box office information, production costs, illustrations etc. Some of the documents are surprisingly long, though it is a little frustrating that the pages are provided as separate image files rather than brought together, for example in PDF format.

There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of older original documents (e.g. posters, press materials, lobby cards for silent films) but the database offers a very handy guide to the critical literature (copyright clearance has been obtained for all the page images they publish). It’s plainly set out and simple to use. Go explore.