An overworked population is precisely the one that needs thought-provoking cinema.

Exactly. The last thing the overworked need is more cultural anesthesia.

> After 1,5 hours commuting and 9,5 hours in the office I prefer Netflix’ ...

I can appreciate that point of view. It's really a matter of what you're receptive to at any given moment.

Keep in mind, however, that Tarkovsky and other innovative filmmakers from the Iron Curtain era literally risked their career every time they made a film. They had something to say and took great pains to do it. It just goes to show that there's really no excuse for the film industry to release so much slop when they got unimaginable resources at their disposal.

I agree, but I wonder if viewers who have been brought up on the superhero genre where something is blowing up every minute or two could even watch a Tarkovsky film. Whenever I try to introduce people to Tarkovsky's films I warn them up front that they need to completely change their sense of time - they need to view these films as meditations, they need to slow way down. And even with these suggestions up front, it's still difficult for many modern viewers to make it through.

Not sure about the other filmmakers but Tarkovsky was pretty much the establishment, a token avant garde cinema in a sea of state propaganda movies. Yes "Andrei Rublyov" was shelved, but that's about it, really. Many others had some of their movies shelved for all kinds of reasons. Risking their lives? Well maybe, if you can consider mental breakdown, heart attack as risk. But I bet Hollywood directors/actors risked their lives more by being in the same hotel room with Harvey Weinstein and his exposed puny dongle.

Harvey Weinstein, if this is a joke it isn't funny. If we're talking about risking lives you can't beat Werner Herzog who worked with that lunatic Klaus Kinski that would shoot at tents with people in, and that was was probably the least crazy thing that dude were doing on set.

Try some movies by Andrzej Wajda, he's one of the most accessible directors (while still being great), so it might work well in the post-work time slot. For example "Man of Marble" (https://35mm.online/vod/fabula/czlowiek-z-marmuru). It's about creating myths of superhuman workers in the Stalinist times to get people to work more/harder.