Introducing 50 From 50

This year, I will watch 50 movies from 50 different countries. From time to time, I’ve done movie-based resolutions like this in the past (like the 1978 Project or the similarly titled 50 Under 50), and I’ve found it to be an edifying experience. Since it’s already March and since this particular resolution is perhaps a little more complicated than the previous two, I figure some guidelines are in order:

• I have to watch 50 movies from 50 different countries, and I’m going to exclude the Anglosphere countries like USA, UK, Canada, etc…
• Despite the Anglosphere exclusion, the language of the movie can still be English (though I expect most will not be)
• All movies must be new-to-me
• Movies from multiple origin countries can get tricky, but those movies can only count towards one primary country (i.e. 1 of the 50), otherwise I could just watch Samsara and get 15 countries under my belt.
• A lot of movies are co-financed by the USA despite being made elsewhere, and for the most part, they won’t count due to the exclusion mentioned above. So Knock at the Cabin is clearly a US movie, despite countries of origin being USA, China, and Japan.
• I toyed with the idea that I should include countries from every continent, but obviously Antarctica is out, Australia is already excluded, and I’ve already covered every continent except Africa… so let’s just say that I should include an African country/film on the list.
• I should watch at least 20 movies from at least 1 of the countries on the list. Potential candidates include Hong Kong, Italy, France, Japan, and Korea, but we’ll have to see how this shakes out.
• This will be retroactive and start from the beginning of this year.

One reason I’ve tried to add these rules is that almost every year, I probably do watch 50 movies from 50 different countries just in the random course of movie watching (or perhaps due to the vagaries of multiple origin countries). So excluding the US stuff cuts down on a lot of that, and ensuring I watch 20 (or more) movies from a single country also adds some more complexity to the challenge.

I will try to keep this post updated with a running list of the 50 films (eventually with links to reviews, etc…)

• Argentina – Argentina, 1985
• Germany – Nekromantik
• Hong Kong – Throw Down
• Italy – 1990: The Bronx Warriors
• Russia – Major Grom: Plague Doctor
• South Korea – Decision to Leave
• Taiwan – Incantation
• Vietnam – Furies

There are a couple of movies that are hard to classify (i.e. is Speak No Evil Denmark or The Netherlands?), but even with those, I’m a few movies behind on this resolution… but that’s not half bad considering I’m only starting now. The current map provided by Letterboxd stats is perhaps a bit misleading due to the prevalence of multiple countries of origin and US productions including other countries, but it will be interesting to see how the map looks at the end of the year…

So there you have it. Reviews for the above mentioned movies are incoming, and we’re off!