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Forum members may be interested in the new Doc-Air 'portal', which offers a variety of downloadable/streaming documentaries (mainly but not exclusively by directors from central and eastern Europe or about central and eastern European subjects) either free or at relatively modest cost. The official press release describing the venture is below. On the basis of my very limited experience to date, I would suggest that unless a catalogue entry says otherwise, each film they offer has English subtitles. But perhaps others could post their experiences here.

[quote]DOC-AIR
Portal for documentary and experimental films online.

Doc-Air is a virtual platform for all documentary forms which are made available in a simple way to all users around the world– film professionals as well as common film viewers. It provides the opportunity for producers to introduce and instantaneously offer the documentary to acquisitors and distributors in various countries.

Doc-Air has already made the following grand films available: Megacities by the prominent Austrian director Michael Glawogger, Dust Games and The Source by the Czech activist-documentarist Martin MareÄ

I thought I'd give this a try, and downloaded the Hungarian documentary The Life of an Agent on spec after reading an intriguing Variety review that said it was:

a fascinating sampling of instructional films prepared to train secret police agents in Hungary during the Cold War. Without striving too hard for easy laughs, helmer Gabor Zsigmond Papp repeatedly and often amusingly underscores the striking visual similarities between his source material -- stark B&W pics culled from Ministry of Interior archives -- and pulpy cloak-and-dagger thrillers that were staples of European cinema during 1960s. By turns campy and chilling, docu could parlay its curiosity value into fest exposure and limited theatrical play.

Once you've viewed the very low-resolution trailer (whose subtitles are barely readable, but at least it's possible to confirm that they're there), you have three quality options, priced accordingly. A streamed copy costs €1 ($1.33), a DivX/XviD download is €3 ($3.99) and a full DVD download is €4.50 ($5.99).

Since I'm in the happy position of being at the favourable end of the exchange rate, I went for the full DVD download - and was taken off to a credit card processing site, after which I was given a code that allowed me access to the file for 48 hours. I then downloaded it overnight, and woke up this morning to find the appropriate VIDEO_TS folder sitting on my hard drive.

The menu is so primitive they might as well not have bothered - just the title in English, which you click on to play - but the presentation of the actual feature is fine. It automatically defaults to English subtitles, but these can be switched off. There are also no chapter stops, so I might do a bit of demultiplexing and post-production with DVD Studio Pro.

Picture and sound are entirely acceptable, especially given that the source materials are black-and-white archive footage whose content is far more important than their aesthetic sheen. And on the evidence of the first five minutes, the film looks fascinating - I'll report back when I've watched the whole thing.

I've now watched the whole thing, and here's a full review.