THE AUTEURS/ MUBI WORLD CUP FILMS, 2009

By: Kenji

The Lumière trophy

CHINA (MANAGED BY MYRA) WON THE INAUGURAL FILM WORLD CUP, DEFEATING INDIA (MANAGED BY APURSANSAR) IN THE FINAL!

These are the films in the Auteurs World Cup, which took place here between September and December 2009. The Auteurs was the name of this site before the change to MUBI. The competition was a new invention, a prototype for the Directors’ Cups of 2010 and 2011, and the Mubi World Cup of 2012. The films here are ordered by original groups, and the matches played. The aim was to promote world cinema, neglected countries and hidden treasures, with some competitive fun along the way. I think it gives an excellent grounding in world cinema. Thanks to all who took part. Africa (managed by Blue K) was a major discovery for many, along with unexpected quality from many sources.

In the matches 3 films were each paired against another 3 for the opponents. Teams were represented according to directors’ birthplace primarily, also by directors’ main workplace in some circumstances, agreed by discussion. Each team had a manager responsible for film selection to face public vote. No director was allowed to be represented more than once in a match. Initially for the group stage, we set a limit on the number of different directors each team could use for the competition but then abolished the restriction for the last 16 onwards. The tournament involved a lot of work and participants’ viewing, new discoveries, was supported by Martin Scorsese and mentioned on CNN.

We had 288 group stage films (8 groups of 4 teams- see below) and 90 knockout stage films chosen- 378 in total!

Films which performed especially well:

Ugetsu Monogatari
Rules of the Game
Spirit of the Beehive
Tokyo Story
Yeelen
Days and Nights in the Forest
Pierrot le Fou
Landscape in the Mist
Subarnarekha
There was a Singing Blackbird
Comedy of Innocence

(hall of shame: Strictly Ballroom, Dreamers)

top directors: Satyajit Ray, Mizoguchi, Bunuel, Tarkovsky. Ousmane Sembene and Sun Yu were among less familiar names who went down well.

Cliffhanging matches: China v Japan, France v Iran, Italy v Spain, Italy v Taiwan. Crushing wins: Japan v Denmark, France v South Korea

THE TEAMS (heavy print denoting teams which qualified for next round)

GROUP 1
Belgium
Czech Republic
S.E.Asia
USA

GROUP 2
France
Hungary
S.Korea
New Zealand

GROUP 3
Japan
Denmark
Balkans
Mexico

GROUP 4
Taiwan
Italy
Chile
Austria

GROUP 5
Spain
Germany
Canada
Brazil

GROUP 6
India
Caucasus & Ukraine
Australia
United Kingdom

GROUP 7
Russia
Iran
Argentina
Sweden

GROUP 8
Africa
China
Turkey
Poland
-

1/8 FINALS
Belgium v China
Russia v Hungary
Japan v Caucasus & Ukraine
Spain v Italy
Taiwan v Germany
India v Denmark
France v Iran
Africa v Czech Republic

1/4 FINALS

China v Russia
Japan v Italy
Germany v India
Iran v Africa

SEMI-FINALS

China v Japan
India v Africa

FINAL

China v India

Ugetsu Monogatari, the film with the biggest winning margin, and against The Conformist, no less!