You don't have to wait until next summer's face-off in South Africa for a little friendly global competition. Created and organized by our online community, The Auteurs World Cup pits national and regional cinemas against each other and lets you, the voter, pick the winners.
A bit of background: The games kicked off in September with 32 teams, then separated into 8 groups of 4, from which the top 2 in each group have qualified for the last 16. The last 16 match line-ups are here. Each team has had a manager making the selections. In each match 3 films are paired against an opponent. Results are decided by the voting preferences of Auteurs users: to vote you must have seen both films in each pairing. At each stage, new films will be selected and some time allowed for viewing before the matches resume.
For more info, see this Forum topic; the quarter finals begin tomorrow, November 17. Right here.
Image: To be fair to all the final 16, it's taken from a film not in the running, Shaolin Soccer (2001).
Update, 11/18: CNN catches World Cup fever.