Final, Final 195 and Batch 5

Because I am doing this in a variety of ways (sometimes I shop from work on my phone, other times I’m on a PC, others again I’m on a tablet) I am constantly double-checking to make sure I’m not making a terrible mistake (especially after the Curious Incident Of Iran And The Missing Subtitles).  I don’t want to duplicate countries unnecessarily.  (True, I might find a brilliant film I’ve never seen before, but I really don’t want to waste money.)

Most of my lists and notes are on my PC, with just a running note of what I’ve bought and what’s outstanding on my phone.  I found the original list I drew up when I first started thinking about this, back when the idea was only abstract, and then saw countries on it that I didn’t have on my current target list.

I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person with a decent basic understanding of current affairs, but I freely admit to huge gaps in my knowledge.  I knew nothing about the civil war in Chad, for example.  Considering why is a matter for another blogger, and I’m not concerned by this – no one can know everything.  So when I saw Kosovo on the original list of countries, I realised I’d not seen it on my current list.

I know Kosovo is in the Balkans.  I know…actually, that’s pretty much it.  After Yugoslavia broke up and new countries were formed, my knowledge ends. A quick Wikipedia browse revealed that the political situation concerning Kosovo was even complicated than I thought; Kosovo isn’t a country, but it is.

I asked ChatGPT, which confirmed that Kosovo claimed independence from Serbia in 2008, but recognition is partial: many countries acknowledge it, others don’t, and it’s not a member of the United Nations.

Chat outlined strong reasons both for and against including Kosovo in the project, but I swiftly found myself back where Copilot had left me: if I include Kosovo, why not Greenland?  I’ve already set the precedent of adding non-UN areas (Wales, Hong Kong, etc) on the basis they have legitimate film-making traditions, so where do I draw a line?  How arbitrary am I being?  I’ve already gone from 213 to 207 to 200.  What counts?

Basically, what am I doing here?  What’s my aim?

If it’s to collect a film from every film-producing area in the world, where do I start or stop?  How far back in time do I go?  Film is now more than a century old – but not every country is. Yugoslavia broke up and became six countries (seven, if we count Kosovo).  I’m buying films from those six right now.  Do I also buy one from Yugoslavia?  And then Kosovo too?  And all of the others?  How far back should I go? Where do I stop?

A lot of places that make films don’t actually produce shiny discs (Big DVD, sadly, is shrinking).  What do I do for those places?

So I’m starting again, and I'm making the rules stricter and clearer:

I intend to acquire a film from every country acknowledged by the UN (as of 1/1/26), which is 193, and two observer states (I still don’t know what they’re watching.  Hopefully films on disc).  It’s clean, it’s honest, it’s clear.  No ambiguities.  Sorry Taiwan: I may own The Sadness, but it’s not relevant here.  Wales's The Feast is a meal I must miss.

There are 195 countries/observers in the world and I have films from 41 of them.  Only 154 to go! (Or, since I've now bought five batches of titles, only 130 to go.)

Batch Five — Countries Acquired

Marshall Islands Yokwe Bartowe (2010)
Mauritania Timbuktu (2014)
Colombia The Squad (2011)

Outlay this batch: £49.56
Total outlay so far: £349.02
Total countries acquired: 24
Cost per country so far: £14.54