Guardian. World cinema special.

Reaching back to 1995, Hannah McGill, director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, traces the path of the cinema's spotlight from Dogme to South America and its "crop of sexy, sweaty, socially conscious movies" to South Korea's "daring, convention-busting auteurs such as Park Chan-Wook and Kim Ki-Duk" to Japanese horror to Hong Kong and China, "providing punchy thrillers and spectacular martial arts epics." So what's next?

"If France has looked a little low on innovation in recent years, Germany is currently raising a host of interesting new directors, among them Fatih Akin, Birgit Grosskopf, Valeska Grisebach and Stefan Krohmer." Also mentioned: Christian Petzold, Hans Christian-Schmid, Stefan Ruzowitzky, Marc Rothemund and, of course, Oscar-winner Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

"The wider reaches of eastern Europe also seem fired with creativity... Further afield, Turkey is perhaps the country to have most recently produced a bona fide festival demigod," Nuri Bilge Ceylan. "Perhaps it's African cinema, however, that really qualifies as the story of the moment." Besides Hollywood's current infatuation, there's Nollywood and its 1000 movies a year and: "Established directors such as Dani Kouyaté, from Mali, Abderrahmane Sissako, from Mauritania, and the veteran Ousmane Sembene, from Senegal, are attracting new interest, as emerging names such as Burkina Faso's Fanta Regina Nacro and Mali's Salif Traoré find festival acclaim with fresh titles."

As an accompanying PDF, Andrew Pulver presents a "one-stop guide to which countries have produced the hippest filmmakers, and when they've done it." Basically, it's a map with film slate-like post-its all over.

On a somewhat related note: "As buoyed as I am by the industry's growing interest in foreign filmmakers, now would be a good time to offer a few words of caution," writes Patrick Goldstein. "While Hollywood history is full of outsider success stories, from Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder to Ang Lee and Alfonso Cuarón, it is also littered with failures and flame-outs."

Michael Hann announces a "Greatest Foreign Film" competition. Send 'em three titles and "explain why you like each one in a couple of sentences." There's even a prize.

Posted by dwhudson at March 30, 2007 6:54 AM