This essay has as its focus the cinephilic website kino-teatr.ru, whose aim is to facilitate film-talk among a large community of cinema afficianados on Runet. Central to the successful functioning of this online community is the transformed nature of cinephilia (a passion not just for film, but also the physical experience of a movie-theatre) that characterises contemporary movie habits. Kino-teatr.ru affords a space for downloading films, sharing movie-talk, contributing rumour, anecdote, fact and opinion, and creating and sustaining cinema/cultural memory. Such engagement with cinema is, therefore, transmedial (uses multiple media platforms for its expression) and is no longer singularly dependent on the physical setting of the theatre. Further, the interface and its interactions destablise old institutions of film viewing and expertise, and efface boundaries between past and present temporalities. Kino-teatr.ru, thus, embodies a new ‘digital cinephilia’, pervasive on Runet.

Language of contribution: English

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