Archive keeps series rolling

There's some particularly intriguing programming at the Harvard Film Archive this week, making it an especially good place to set up camp now that winter has finally rolled into town.

The seventh annual New Films From Europe series continues today through Wednesday with five more films .

Tonight's "Longing," which comes from Germany, looks at what happens when a married man drinks too much, wakes up with a waitress, and unexpectedly finds himself in love with both her and his wife . Director Valeska Grisebach, who was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1968, is a graduate of the Vienna Film Academy and used nonprofessional actors for her well-received film , which screens at 7.

Czech director Jan Hrebejk's "Beauty in Trouble" is a variation on the same theme with the genders flipped: A young married woman finds herself with the opportunity to trade her life for one with a new man in Tuscany ( tomorrow at 7 p.m. and Wednesday at 9:15 p.m.).

The Archive is also presenting a series of silent classics it says "are sure to please our loyal audience of silent film enthusiasts" while offering "delights for film lovers of all kinds." Four of the five films are from the HFA's collection, including D.W. Griffith's "True Heart Susie," with Lillian Gish as a country girl "who carefully waits for her man to return to his senses after being 'corrupted' by a city woman." The 1919 film screens Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Pianist Peter Freisinger will accompany the Tuesday night film and three others, including the recently restored "Pandora's Box," starring Louise Brooks, on Feb. 20.

Information on both programs, including times and film descriptions, is available at 617-495-4700 and hcl.harvard.edu/hfa.

RESOURCE FOR FILMMAKERS, PART 1: WGBH has a neat place online for filmmakers to network and grab free video resources. Anyone can visit the area of its website called The WGBH Lab, which is described as "an online destination for independent media makers to produce and showcase innovative content for public media outlets."

A featured section is the nascent Video Sandbox, where visitors are invited to download free video clips from media libraries, make new art from them, and then repost them. The Lab Showcase page has links to more than a half - dozen short films by Curtis Ellis and Ian Cheney (a profile of a Maine loner), Scott Patterson (travels with Davy Rothbart of Found magazine), Caroline Toth (about taking up drumming), Tracy Heather Strain (about taking up figure skating), Katrina Browne (the genealogy of a slave-trading family), and others.

The 6:55 Shorts area highlights the winning proposals from the 2006 short film ideas contest that are now being produced with WGBH funding. The Submit function provides an easy way for any filmmaker to send a completed short film to be considered for a new monthly television show and other forums.

And the Filmmakers in Residence area has information on Brittany Huckabee and Monika Navarro, two filmmakers currently working on projects at the station. Information about how to apply for the next residency is also posted.

To take a look, go to wgbh.org/lab.

RESOURCE FOR FILMMAKERS, PART 2: The website Creative Commons is a nonprofit project that encourages artists to "share, reuse, and remix -- legally." Just like at WGBH's Video Sandbox, there is a place on the Creative Commons site where video artists can find film clips to use in making new art, and an area to post what they make.

The Los Angeles comedy collective The Lonely Island, which includes " Saturday Night Live " cast member Andy Samberg, has put many of its video shorts online under a Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike" license. That means viewers are free to share the videos and remix them as long as they are doing the work for noncommercial purposes, provide attribution, and promise to distribute their new work under the same license. Find out more at creativecommons.org.

SCREENINGS OF NOTE: A two-week program titled Russian Fantastik Cinema opens this week at the Museum of Fine Arts . It includes "Planet of Storms," a sci-fi feature that involves cosmonauts, the planet Venus, and a hungry pterodactyl. The film plays Thursday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 11 a.m. (617-267-9300 and mfa.org/film).

Also this week at the MFA, the documentary "Matthew Barney: No Restraint" begins an eight-show engagement that runs through Feb. 17. The documentary follows the visual and film artist and his partner Björk as they create the film "Drawing Restraint 9." Also included are interviews with gallery owner Barbara Gladstone and New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman about the hows and whys of Barney's rise in the art world. It plays Wednesday at 8:45 p.m., Thursday at 2:30 p.m., and Saturday at 4 p.m.

Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com.