World Cinema (Classic and New)

For decades I have been searching almost in vain for ready, easy (and preferably free) access to the greatest films in the world (ideally in the original language [perhaps with optional Spanish or English subtitles]) and I must say that even with the Internet and our present state of "globalization" we in the USA have not progressed at all in this area. Why can't our theaters, our cable companies, our video rentals or our websites provide us with some access to the wealth of cinematographic creations the world over? I envision and long for the day when every home has a dozen foreign equivalents to our Turner Classic Movies channel. It is all too rare for our cable movie channels to show a foreign film.

For example, I should like to watch the two top 2009 Cannes Festival winners:

"Das weisse Band" http://www.dasweisseband.x-verleih.de/ and

"Un Prophete". http://www.un-prophete-lefilm.com/

As far as I can tell they are not available here at all in any venue!!! (Nor are the winners of previous years or of the myriad film festivals every year throughout the world: e.g. the Middle East and the Far East) Why is that? This is not Russia! I suppose even there they have access to great foreign films throughout the country.

If someone could tap this untapped area of the media for us it seems to me that it could easily become the biggest movie industry in the country (given the excellent quality of much of the foreign film industry and given the largely foreign makeup of our own people here). Maybe it's a job for Google: e.g. Googlemovies.com. If that should happen we could all replace the television with the computer and America would broaden its artistic horizon to include the world. Of course, there would have to be some way to warn against (and preferably censor) the ubiquitous pornography on the screen.

In this regard I must say there has been some small progress from Ignatius Press which sells a limited line of fine videos from around the world and EWTN which now has EWTN CINEMA Saturday nights at 8PM. The most recent film I'm seeing there (Part 2 tonight) is "San Giuseppe Moscati": a superb drama of an extraordinary life. http://pisgahview.net/?p=4396