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Foreign movies, why not?

When you think about cinema, what comes to your mind? I will say that for a lot of people it will be Hollywood, the American movies, the superheroes and those hardcore characters that will save the world, and we often forget that we have a whole world to explore. Why does this keep happening?

When I say foreign movies, I’m talking about non-English language movies, so they actually might not be a foreign for you! We have this idea that the good movies come from Hollywood or from London. Of course, they created some of the most amazing movies, but why don’t we give other nations a chance to shine with their cinema? With this article, I’m not criticising anyone, I’m Portuguese and I don’t give a big importance to Portuguese cinema, I’m only trying to explore this topic and try to find the reasons why this happens.

I would say the main reason is the language. Watching a movie in English is just so easy, either because we understand English or because you can find subtitles for every English movie. Also, I know some people who don’t like to watch ‘international movies’ because of the language barrier, the spoken language is not familiar and they are not used to the sound, so they simply choose to watch just another American movie about New York city life.

Some years ago, I started watching international movies (and tv series as well), especially Middle Eastern and European, and I realized how many amazing and interesting stories were “hidden” from me, because I was only watching English-speaking movies. Watching these movies made me realize that there is a different perspective for the same subject, even about the cultures, for instance. With this, I want you to be sure, I don’t hate America, but the truth is, if you only watch American movies, you will only have their perspective and it is not always the right side of the story: why are they always the heroes? So, yes, I highly recommend you to watch some other movies: you will learn more about a certain country just by watching their cinema, you will discover new cultures and a new language, find new music and ways of expressing feelings and messages. It’s an open door! (Tip: if you want to start, you can check the Oscar list of Best International Feature Film).

The other reason why we don’t watch international movies, in my opinion, is because we don’t give value to our national cinema. For example, in my country, we first watch the American/English movies, after European productions and just then we give an opportunity to the Portuguese cinema. The ICA, the Portuguese Institute of Cinema and Audio-visual, published a document about the percentage of Portuguese people that went to the cinema during 2018, and only less than 2% of viewers went to watch Portuguese movies, the American being the biggest one, with 71,3 % of viewers. So why do we have these numbers? Why don’t we give an opportunity to our national cinema?

We can raise questions, actually this article is more like a self reflection, I’m also evaluating my own behavior. Why do we think like this in general? For instance, is the Portuguese cinema all bad or do we actually have good movies, but we just saw or heard about this awful movie and we assume that everything else is also bad quality? Do we have this idea because, as an audience, we don’t demand high quality? We are just used to Soap- -Operas, always with the same story, and we believe our cinema will be the same?

My big advice to everyone would be to give a chance to your country’s cinema. It is true, not all the movies are good, the plot might be poor, sometimes some interpretation might not be the best (and sometimes there is some obscure business behind the scenes), but that’s how they will get better, how they will improve. If we have a small market and small audience, it is difficult to produce great movies with little budget, so I believe the producers and the actors/actresses try their best and we just need a little patience and an open mind, because we might get a surprise!

(...) we don’t give value to our national cinema (...)