For its second edition "Tous les Cinémas du Monde" welcomes seven new countries: Russia, Israel, Singapore, Switzerland, Venezuela, Tunisia and Chile.

The goal of this programme of the Festival de Cannes is to illustrate the cultural diversity of world cinema. It was created and continues to develop thanks to financing from the Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.

Russia, not so long ago, suffered an absence of great films and a void in the number of motion-picture theatres. Today, the volume of production and number of theatres are on the rise. It is this new panorama which is given to us to see where a new generation attempts the synthesis between the great national film tradition and the new Russian society.
In Israel, the productions probe deeper into the lives of individuals and less into political events. Three feature films and five shorts are presented to us, products of a multicultural society, a profusion of film schools, a proactive public policy, and an openness to the cinema of others.
Singapore will illustrate the aesthetic, linguistic and intellectual diversity which characterises it by presenting films in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Malay and various Chinese dialects. This cultural diversity plunges us into an extraordinary variety of themes, rhythms and treatments.
Switzerland isn't quite the peaceful quiet country that our clichés depict, the sweet mountains and opulent cities are apparently propitious to amorous delights, police thrillers and all the rest; nothing nor no-one remains peaceful and quiet long in these 3 feature films and 9 shorts.
Venezuela saw, in 2005, the coming into force of the "Cinema Law" and the creation of the FONPROCINE which collects a 3% tax on theatre tickets. As the presented programme testifies, this new policy relies on filmmakers who travel, are familiar with the cinema of others and draw their inspiration from the social and political tensions of their country.
Tunisia brings us a rare case of "intellectual and popular cinema borne by a digital generation", liberated and creative, which comes to take its place beside a dynamic 35mm production.
Chile harvests the fruits of a voluntarist policy: those who graduated from its film school, created 11 years ago, have begun to form the framework of a national cinema; and for the past two years a cinema law and Arts and Broadcasting Industry Council have helped in the development of production. The films which we present, for the most part debut works, splendidly illustrate this new current.

In 2005, Tous les Cinémas du Monde welcomed 46 directors, and in 2006 now 80 will be joining us in Cannes.

Tous les Cinémas du Monde takes place from Saturday, May 20th to Friday, May 26th at the International Village-Pantiero

Imagined by architects Patrick Bouchain and Nicole Concordet, the theatre will benefit from substantial improvements and will be endowed, thanks to exceptional funding from the Region Provence-Alpes-Côte of Azure, with a new projection booth.