How to keep entertained during lockdown
In light of the Covid-19 lockdown around the world there are several alternative streaming options available to South Africans — some at a cost and others free of charge. Here’s a selection of places to go to quell the boredom and the frustrations of three weeks of state-enforced isolation, while also being entertained and intrigued.
MUBI.COM
Mubi is a subscription service specialising in art house, independent, classic and offthe-beaten track cinema from around the world. Films are available for a specified time before the selection is refreshed.
Carefully curated around a number of fresh and unusual themes, the service is now offering films that examine the glory days of post-war Indian cinema and the most interesting of the country’s new wave of directors; the restored archive of cult gore masters Troma; classics from Hollywood’s golden age by directors such as Michael Curtiz and King Vidor; a deep dive into the work of postwar Japanese master director Yûzô Kawashima; and a recently discovered documentary on the work of legendary Hollywood actor Sterling Hayden.
METOPERA.ORG
The Metropolitan Opera in New York has opera fans covered with free live streams of some of its most lavish and epic productions. Performances are made available for a limited time before they change over.
ACORN.TV
A subscription service, which offers a seven-day free trial,
Acorn TV is a one-stop shop for the best of British television. You can enjoy classics such as the groundbreaking 1989, multicharacter, drug-world exploration drama Traffik; the lighthearted, gentle chuckles of Stephen Fry’s performance as a country solicitor in the three seasons of Kingdom; Toby Jones’s performance in the lavish period thriller The Secret Agent, based on the novel by Joseph Conrad, and a host of solid crime thriller and comic entertainment from the UK.
OPENCULTURE.ORG AND ARCHIVE.ORG
These two sites are essential first stops in the search for films publicly available once they are out of copyright. You’d be surprised at what’s out there and available to watch free of charge. From 125 feature films from the Korean Film Archive to 70 classics of Russian cinema — including works by Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov and Andrei Tarkovsky — made available by Russian studio Mosfilm, to classic works of
Hollywood and British and world cinema by directors such as Howard Hawks, Luis Buñuel, Michael Powell and Peter Greenaway. They’re also excellent places to see what’s out there in the free education and audiobook departments.
YOUTUBE.COM
It’s not always easy to navigate the millions of videos on the world’s biggest free-content platform but if you spend some time you can find a plethora of free feature films, television episodes and documentaries that you might be surprised to learn are available. The easiest way might be to Google “best free feature films, documentaries, television on YouTube” and work your way from there.
Look for content that has copyright clearance or you’ll find yourself watching films that have no music or missing scenes and other irritations. If you make the effort you’ll find that there is pretty much something for everyone.
CURIOSITYSTREAM.COM
An annual subscription fee gets you access to this platform, which offers thousands of documentaries that cover everything from nature to technology, history, society and lifestyle. It’s a mixed bag of traditional television docs to more interesting films that explore the world around us, but if real-life stories are your passion then it’s a must-have service that will keep you occupied for endless hours and feed your curiosity.