Thousands of classic Polish films, etc. made available for free online
35mm.online
35mm.online
Golem:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080806/
https://35mm.online/en/vod/feature-films/golem
The War of the Worlds: Next Century:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083335/
https://35mm.online/en/vod/feature-films/the-war-of-the-worl...
O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089714/
https://35mm.online/en/vod/feature-films/o-bi-o-ba-the-end-o...
Ga-ga: Glory to the Heroes:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091096/
https://35mm.online/en/vod/feature-films/ga-ga-glory-to-the-...
The society and the media in "The War of the Worlds: Next Century", if you ignore the martians and the blood thing does remind me of Russia and China today.
* Possession (1981) starring Sam Neil and Isabelle Adjani. It starts out sort of like a relationship-gone-bad film then goes into a full-on crazy mode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah4Z1yIAoFM
* On The Silver Globe (1988) -- Unfinished sci-fi, super innovative, completely bonkers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Silver_Globe_(film)
Oh man, there’s a new 4K restoration. I don’t know if I can handle a second watch.
The Polish film I’d recommend is Kieślowski‘s The Double Life of Veronique.
It really moved me, although I don't agree with suggestion that movie is making: staying neutral is the worst choice you can make.
Especially in communist Poland it was probably best choice to avoid jail/torture/execution and shame of collaboration at the same time.
See that’s the thing with rhetoric. It’s easy to say from the safety of our modern lives. Or as my mom used to say: “It’s easy to shit when your butt is full”
Growing up in almost eastern europe (slovenia), you’d hear a lot of stories from ye olden days of what was and wasn’t said. What people did and didn’t do. At the end of the day, you can be all the hero you want, but the only thing that matters long-term is whether you got scooped up into the murder pits or not.
Objectively, neither side was that great. In the 60’s and 70’s we built memorials to fallen comrades bravely fighting the fascist oppressor. In the 90’s and 00’s we built memorials to the fallen souls bravely dying in communist murder pits during that same period. shrug
One other fun story from a relative who participated in a work action just after war building a railroad. It was pouring rain, and that day Tito came through to visit/peptalk. According to her, he said "Is it raining comrade?" to which she retorted "It is not raining comrade Tito, it is a sunny day!"
Till 1956? Yes. After? The regime was bad, but less violent like some of the modern dictatorships, for example current Putin's Russia. Low level activism could result in losing job, but not execution.
Imagine that perpetrators of Navalny poisoning were actually tried: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Popie%C5%82uszko
Unfortunately, it does not appear to have English subtitles on this site according to the icons (I cannot create an account to check at the moment). It does look like you can rent the film with subtitles quite cheaply from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Chance-English-Subtitled-Bogusl...
> All film materials presented on the 35mm.online platform meet the requirements of WCAG 2.0 - they have audio descriptions, transcriptions, subtitles in Polish and English, as well as comprehensive descriptions. For foreigners, the entire film library of the Platform is available in English.
So I assume that this one also has English subtitles. The icon below the film is only about the available audio language options.
Edit: Just double checked and yes, the English subtitles are available for this one (and all other films).
I would also add the masterpieces he is most known for: "The Double Life of Veronique" and the trilogy, "Red", "White", and "Blue". Of these "White" is the most accessible, it stars a very young and luminous Julie Deply.
https://www.criterionchannel.com/videos/a-short-film-about-k... https://www.criterionchannel.com/videos/three-colors-white-t...
>In the years 2018-2021, the Polish Film Institute, the Documentary and Feature Film Studios and Studio Filmow Rysunkowych implemented a Project (number POPC.02.03.02-00-0007 / 17), named:
>‘Digital restoration and digitization of Polish feature films, documentaries and animated films in order to ensure access in all fields of distribution (cinema, television, Internet, mobile devices) and to preserve Polish film heritage for future generations’, under Sub-measure 2.3.2 ‘Digital sharing of resources of culture’ for Measure 2.3 ‘Digital accessibility and usefulness of public sector information’, under the Operational Programme Digital Poland for 2014-2020.
>160 feature films, 71 documentaries, 474 animated films, including 10 full-length animated films have been restored as part of the project.
>The project was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund. The total value of the project is PLN 107 292 917,71, the value of the European Union funding is PLN 75 121 952,02. The project was also co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in the amount of PLN 13 516 016,95.
Co-funded (75%) by EU, cost $22mil.
https://35mm.online/en/vod/feature-films/there-was-jazz
>Young musicians in Łódź play jazz. At first, they do it offstage, then semi-officially, and finally they are trying to find a place for a concert. As it is forbidden in the Stalinist Poland, they lose their jobs, places at universities and their girls. Music is the only thing that cannot be taken away from them.
https://35mm.online/en/vod/feature-films/interrogation
>Antonina Dziwisz, a cabaret artist, travels around Poland with the cabaret group. Unexpectedly, she is arrested and involved in the Stalinist political trial. The woman does not succumb to violence, despite humiliation, threats and brutal punishments.
Not to mention plenty of movies from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_moral_anxiety
Tоварищ auganov ты потерялся?
This helped tremendously when I was going from “school English” to “native English”, because things I couldn’t pick up by ear yet, I could pick up by reading the subtitles.
If you watch it with Ukrainian subtitles, your brain just falls back on what it already knows, and ignores the soundtrack (mostly).
Quoting IMDB: “Abandoned by his wife and daughter, a famous surgeon starts drinking, hurts his head and loses his memory. His medical knowledge gradually resurfaces and he becomes a village healer …”
https://35mm.online/en/vod/feature-films/pilot-pirx-s-inques...
play.cine.ar
Tell me if you can, maybe with a proxy or cheating the account registration. It is a free public platform anyway. We are paying that with taxes so don't worry.
A surprising amount of pre-90s film is randomly available on youtube; sometimes with odd choices about dubbing and subtitles.
A lot of the creators behind the various films were pretty nuanced people, too...it shows in the way that they speak a clearly ethical filmic language based in universal ideals.
https://www.youtube.com/c/MosfilmRuOfficial
For instance the excellent "Irony of fate" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVpmZnRIMKs
There are lots of films at Odessa film studios too: https://www.youtube.com/c/OdessAnimationStudio
but at the moment you'll mostly find news about the war in Ukraine...
I haven't tried yet, but every time I try casting with Chromecast/AirPlay somehow subtitles always get lost...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Saragossa_Man...
Documentary from the set, starts @10:00 https://35mm.online/vod/kroniki/polska-kronika-filmowa-64-26...
Similar surreal movies by same Director/Author:
https://35mm.online/vod/fabula/sanatorium-pod-klepsydra
https://35mm.online/vod/fabula/osobisty-pamietnik-grzesznika...
yep you are right, looks like FairPlay Streaming (FPS).
So mission accomplished, Polish Film Institute.
On the other hand as non native Polish speaker I will enjoy some evening with some great movie recommended in this thread.
I can appreciate that point of view. It's really a matter of what you're receptive to at any given moment.
Keep in mind, however, that Tarkovsky and other innovative filmmakers from the Iron Curtain era literally risked their career every time they made a film. They had something to say and took great pains to do it. It just goes to show that there's really no excuse for the film industry to release so much slop when they got unimaginable resources at their disposal.
While there are a ton of lost movies, we also live in a world in which services like Criterion Channel, Mubi, and Shudder make more film available than ever. The other week, I got curious and watched a movie from Ulrike Ottinger, loved it, and when I get around to it I can watch any of a dozen more of her movies.
Likewise, I just bought a boxed set of folk horror movies from Severin Films. I miss good video rental stores, but even pre-Netflix there weren’t more than a dozen US cities with video stores where you could rent stuff like that.
The top grossing lists are mostly dominated by blockbusters, it’s true, but let’s look at (say) 1978. Grease, Animal House, Close Encounters, Every Which Way But Loose, and Heaven Can Wait (a remake!) are the top five. It’s been a blockbuster-driven market for 40+ years, with the occasional breakthrough art house film and, more frequently, a big non-franchise genre film (The Martian, Us, etc.) None of this has prevented great directors like the Coen Brothers, Soderbergh, or del Toro from making very good movies.
There’s a market for super-hero movies. There’s also a market for “real” film. These two things are sometimes in tension, but I think at the moment they’re both viable.
- Everything Everywhere All at Once - The Black Phone - The Northman - House of Gucci - Knives Out - Little Women - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - The Shape of Water
The blockbusters are such a huge part of the cultural landscape so that it’s easy to miss all the other film out there. But there’s really a lot of it!
I continue to read the somewhat mediocre wheel of time series mostly because it's familiar and thereby comforting, and there's a lot of it. I listened to "parable of the sower" (a more high-brow fiction by Octavia Butler) audiobook recently and while it was more "thought provoking" it was also depressing, and I've got enough stressors in my life right now without spending my leisure time reading about made-up tragedies. So I instead opt for something less mentally challenging when I want to relax.
Most importantly, appreciating "real art" doesn't make you better than someone who likes to binge on MCU movies. It's condescending and superior to call someone "hypnotized" for liking something you don't, and comments like that tell us more about you than the person you're judging.