Venice this year sees the unveiling of the four latest films in the BFI's acclaimed series on The Century of Cinema. As part of the celebrations of cinema's 100th birthday, the BFI invited well-known directors from around the world to make personalised documentary histories of their country's cinematic heritage.
Last year, Cannes saw the premieres of the first batch in the series, made for BFI TV in collaboration with the UK's Channel 4 and the Museum of Modern Art in New York to celebrate the centenary of cinema. The films, from directors such as Martin Scorsese, Stephen Frears, Jean-Luc Godard, Edgar Reitz, Nagisa Oshima, Sam Neill, Jang Sun-Woo and Nelson Pereira dos Santos, told the history of cinema in each director's country, as seen through his eyes.
Taking a bow on the Lido this week, in the Window on Cinema section, are films from China's Stanley Kwan, India's Mrinal Sen, Poland's Pawel Lozinski and Russia's Sergei Selyanov.
China's recent cinematic output has been among the best received on the international festival circuit in recent years. Yang Yin Gender in Chinese Cinema by director Stanley Kwan investigates this legacy.
The Indian film industry, the biggest in the world, is explored by Mrinal Sen. The themes developed through his distinguished career as a feature film director are addressed in And the Show Goes On, which looks at Indian cinema's search for reality in its diverse forms.
Based on an original idea by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski, A Hundred Years of Polish Cinema is directed by his first assistant on Three Colours White, Pawel Lozinski. Poland's distinctive contribution to world cinema out of all proportion to its size as a nation is seen in the film through the eyes of the audience over the past hundred years.
The sense of national identity that runs through Russia's great cinematic tradition is addressed by filmmaker Sergei Selyanov. His contribution to the BFI series, The Russian Idea, depicts the transformations of the Russian idea in the world of cinematography.
Nick Thomas
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