World Directors and Their Films: Essays on African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern Cinema

Few recent books on world cinema examine films and the careers of international film artists in survey form. At a time when film scholarship has become entangled in pedantic discourse, Bert Cardullo analyzes some of the most important films and the artists who produced them. Beyond simple biographical capsules and plot summaries, these readings demonstrate with clarity and elegance how international moviemakers use the resources of the medium to pursue complex, significant human goals.

In World Directors and Their Films: Essays on African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern Cinema, Cardullo offers fresh perspectives on some of the established greats—including Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai), and Satyajit Ray (The Stranger)—as well as insights into vital work by such contemporary filmmakers as Hirokazu Kore-eda (Nobody Knows), Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!), Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou), Chen Kaige (Farewell, My Concubine), Abbas Kiarostami (A Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us), Majid Majidi (The Children of Heaven, The Color of Paradise), Siddiq Barmak (Osama), Ousmane Sembène (Moolaadé), Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Abouna), María Novaro (Danzón), Hector Babenco (Carandiru), and Andrucha Waddington (Me, You, Them).

Including essays on filmmakers from China, Japan, India, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Iran, Senegal, and Chad, World Directors and Their Films is an engaging and enlightening collection. Along with its companion volume, European Directors and Their Films, this book will appeal to the general reader as well as scholars of international cinema.