Hundreds of classic Polish films have been made available to watch legally for free online as part of a project funded by the European Union and Poland’s culture ministry.
Among the films published on the 35mm.online website – all of which have English subtitles – are works by famed directors Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Kieślowski, including the former’s Man of Marble and Man of Iron and the latter’s Three Colours trilogy.
Nearly 4,000 🇵🇱 films: historical documents and newsreels of the Polish People’s Republic, but not only, are available FOR FREE thanks to a partnership b/w Polish Film Institute @filmsfrompoland
& major Polish film studios https://t.co/0sAQ1cWSfU.
📽️🇵🇱➡️https://t.co/pYHmy3CCSg pic.twitter.com/mkqdy4H646— Polish Embassy UK 🇵🇱 (@PolishEmbassyUK) July 17, 2022
The new service includes 160 feature films, 71 documentaries, and 474 animated films and TV shows, including classic children’s favourites such as Reksio. The project also features 3,108 episodes of the Polish Film Chronicle, a newsreel shown in cinemas before films from 1944 to 1994.
As well as being available on the 35mm.online website, the films can also be viewed through an app for Android and iOS phones and an Android app for smart TVs.
The project is run by the Documentary and Feature Film Studios (WFDiF), one of Poland’s oldest film studios, with over 75 million zloty (€15.7 million) of funding from the EU and a further 13.5 million zloty from the Polish culture ministry.
Main image credit: Man of Marble/Andrzej Wajda (screenshot)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
