Feel Free to Make Film Suggestions

I’m going to try to keep the meta-blogging to a minimum, but it occurred to me that I should ask you all for suggestions about what to watch from a particular country…especially if it’s a country that doesn’t boast a large film industry. I’m still going to do my own research, but I’m always more than happy to hear suggestions for a particular place.

I’ve only watched films from Palestine and Japan so far, but I do have my films picked out for Mexico, England, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Colombia, Burkina Faso, Romania, South Korea and Belgium. I have strong candidates for a host of other countries including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Canada, Uruguay and Australia. I realized I recently watched a film from Chad and can’t imagine their film industry is huge, so I might have to include that one (I’m trying to make it all films I haven’t seen before.)

I plan on watching my Romanian film tonight and another tomorrow (probably Belgian), so actual updates are coming soon. I had kind of a hectic week this week and it made film watching/reviewing not particularly feasible.

A few years ago…

A few years ago, I started hosting a monthly film night that almost exclusively focused on foreign language film. I’m seldom interested in the latest Hollywood “shoot-em-ups” on offer at the local multiplex and while there is a semi-decent amount of independent film screened where I live, there is virtually no outlet for those of us interested in world cinema that’s not in English. Having to read subtitles has never inhibited my enjoyment of a film and I find it incredibly stifling to limit my cinematic intake to films in English, the only language I speak fluently.

During those film nights (which still continue), I began to explore well outside of the cinematic hotbeds of France, Spain, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, etc. While I love many of the genius directors and films produced by those countries with a rich film history, I also was interested about what kind of films are produced in Albania, Thailand, Georgia, Chile, Iran, Lebanon, Serbia, Kenya, Romania, etc. In constantly scouring for movies to show on my “film nights” (usually attended by 5-10 people) I started realizing there is so much out there worth exploring from places we don’t consider cinematic epicenters.

That’s how this idea was born. I have no set time limit on this project, but this blog exists to chronicle my attempt to see at least one film produced in every country on earth. I imagine it’ll be difficult and at times I’m sure I’ll have to stretch the interpretation of what attaches a film to a certain country as I don’t imagine there are a lot of films produced by some of the smaller countries in Oceania or the Caribbean or in some of the more remote corners of the planet. I’m sure the films are produced, but they’re probably not widely available. I imagine it’ll take a combination of Netflix, the library, YouTube, etc. to achieve this…if I ever do. It should be and entertaining and enlightening attempt at the very least.

One additional note: I don’t pretend to be an expert or a film critic. I simply like what I like.