Welcome to Public Domain Theater, your home for the wonderful world of films that have (in the United States, at least) fallen into the public domain, and are free for everyone to see!

Since we went all-in on campy B-movies last month, this month we’re gonna balance it out with some artsier fare.

Our feature film is A Page of Madness, an experimental Japanese film from the Silent Era. Set in a mental institution, it contains no intertitles that might provide dialogue or narration, telling the story entirely through visuals – and as those visuals bounce wildly between past, present, delusion, and reality, it becomes a truly mind-bending experience.

And we’re not gonna let our short film be any less surreal or experimental – it’s the French film “Un Chien Andalou”, directed by Luis Buñuel and co-written with Salvador Dali. Describing the plot would be a fool’s game, as this is a film all about presenting bizarre visuals that flow together only via dream logic. At times disturbing (bordering on horror) and at other times absurdly funny, there’s little else like it.

So if you’re ready, follow me down the rabbit hole, ingest your psychedelic of choice, and experience some of the surreal wonders of the Public Domain.

Opening Short:

Feature Presentation: