PRUSKA KULTURA is the oldest known Polish film, produced in 1908 by Mordka Towbin in Warsaw... at a time when Poland didn't exist, when the nation was divided into three parts, controlled by Russia, Germany and Austria. Polish politics sought a separate state with territory reclaimed from each of those three nations. So this story of the oppression of Polish nationals could have been made in any of those nations, so long as the oppressing emperor was not the local ruler. With Warsaw under the control of Russia, the natural enemy of Poland was Germany. The audience could identify the soldiers who dragged off the Poles hoping for a peaceful existence by their helmets. Also, the audience would know that any of the Empires that controlled Poland would do the same. Towbin had succeeded in producing a revolutionary film under the nose of the Tsar.
How is it for a 1908 film? A little old-fashioned, which means that for the modern viewer of silent movies, incredibly primitive. The camera doesn't move, the setting is clearly in a proscenium arch, the acting is stagey.... so as a movie it's uninteresting. Yet as a piece of Polish history it's fascinating.