Batches 18 and 19
And now the fun can really begin.
With one or two exceptions, I have done the easy titles. There's a page here which details the final 20 countries I need to acquire. I'll also put up a page for each country with some details about why it's proving hard to track down titles from there. For some of them it's simply a matter of waiting for the right price. For others, it's a matter of waiting for someone to sell their obscure DVD. Or for someone to licence the obscure film, subtitle it and stick it out on disc. It's becoming clear that the days of people doing that at minimal cost are now over. With the exception of brand new releases and boutique labels, streaming is now the norm. We're probably never going to go back to the glory days of titles being widely available. We're at the mercy of the streamers. There's progress for you.
There won't be any more acquisition posts. I'll update the Final 20 page as they're collected. I've identified potential titles for them, which are detailed on each page, so for the most part it's just a matter of setting up search alerts on the pages for different retailers. I am now reasonably confident I'll be able to finish the project.
I have titles for 175 countries, and I've only reviewed 40-something of them. By the time I've finished writing reviews I very much hope I'll have completed the Final 20. If you are reading this and you happen to live in one of the Final 20 countries, please do get in touch. Well, please get in touch if you know of a film from your country! I don't expect any of this to be free - I'm more than willing to pay for the disc and for postage and packaging.
We're still a long way away from completing this - there are a lot of reviews to go! And I already have some ideas for what I'll be trying to collect next. The Cartographic theme will remain, never fear. I also think that before I start trying to collect, say, one film from each of the 50 American states, I may well want to revisit some of the countries whose titles I found disappointing. I'm sure Malta can do much better than The Boat, for instance. I'm certain Iran can improve on Fish & Cat. For now, though, these are the titles collected in the final two batches:
Batch Eighteen - Countries Acquired
Grenada Vanishing Sail (2015)
Guyana Karma: A Love Story (2007)
Monaco Le Songe (2008)
Montenegro Mamula/Killer Mermaids (2014)
Sierra Leone They Are We (2014)
Suriname Wan Pipel (1976)
Timor-Leste A Guerra da Beatriz (2013)
Outlay this batch: £104.12
Total outlay so far: £1797.08
Total countries acquired: 128
Cost per country so far: £14.04
Countries Remaining: 25
Batch Nineteen - Countries Acquired
Belize We Are Belize (2006)
Honduras Spirit of My Mother (1999)
Moldova All God's Children (2012)
Oman Oman: Arabia's Paradise (2009)
Somalia The Village Next to Paradise (2024)
Outlay this batch: £116.54
Total outlay so far: £1913.62
Total countries acquired: 133
Cost per country so far: £14.39
Countries Remaining: 20