For a long time I’ve wanted to create a world map indicating what countries I have seen films from. Now I’ve done it as you can see above. Recently, I finally did it, it was a shorter process than I imagined but as painstaking. It’s also an imperfect map. There are places where I’ve had to make decisions that effected whether or not a country was highlighted in green or not.

I included countries on this list based its “cultural impact”on story this goes beyond the country of origin of the director but also considers the setting of the film (not merely a shooting location), the predominant language(s) spoken, the makeup of the cast and more.

Some examples would be:

Cyprus is not included. I’ve seen a film directed by Greek Cypriot, Michael Cacoyannis, though it was also filmed in Cyprus it was an adaptation of Checkov’s The Cherry Orchard performed in English.

International co-productions are common and cooperative funding is crucial to film. However, that does not make a Hollywood film co-funded by Chinese, UAE, Arab or other nations not an American film. Therefore, at times when neighboring nations co-produced a film I erred to where the film was produced, who it represents, etc. I couldn’t mark off Panama thought they were a funding partner on a film called The Colors of the Mountain but that film wasn’t set in their nation or about Panamanian peoples. Also, some African and Western Asian nations might be omitted due to funding coming from neighboring countries.

The one yellow (To Be Watched) nation in the Pacific, that is Vanuatu. I hate it on DVD but haven’t screened it yet.

Another complication was the changing of borders over time. Some films produced before 1990 are now designated as being Estonian or Ukrainian in the case of the former Soviet Union. Typically, I’ve erred toward only marking off a nation when I was certain and didn’t have to attribute the film to said nation myself. Making that decision myself was to be avoided because in narrative features locations can be cheated. The exception is I was able to claim having seen a film from Bosnia & Herzegovina because the 1984 Winter Olympic film was in and about Sarajevo, which was Yugoslavia at the time.

If mistakes were made in terms of omitting countries off this list that should be included, it’ll only incentivize me to actively seek out works from that country.