One of the most important things to keep in mind when thinking about world cinema is just how few films that are made actually are distributed for exhibition. This is especially true in a country that is assumed (rightly or wrongly) to have a general disinterest in anything foreign, subtitled, or generally unfamiliar. So every year when the Village Voice or indieWIRE polls critics as to the top undistributed films of the year, films seen at festivals in and outside of the U.S. but without theatrical or home video release in the States, we should take notice. These are the best films most people aren’t seeing. These kinds of lists are particularly important to a site like The Auteurs, which hopes, through digital distribution, to help make such lists a thing of the past.
The article can be found here. The top ten list as as follows:
The Ten Best Undistributed Films of 2007
1. Secret Sunshine (Lee, South Korea)
2. Useless (Jia, HK/China)
3. The Romance of Astree and Celadon (Rohmer, France) and In the City of Sylvia (Guerin, Spain)
Profit motive and the whispering wind (Gianvito, USA) and The Man From London (Tarr, France/Germany/Hungary)
La France (Bozo, France)
You, the Living (Andersson, Sweden)
Frownland (Bronstein, USA) and Go Go Tales (Ferrara, USA)
Battle for Haditha (Broomfield, USA)