List of submissions to the 31st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
Submissions
Table:
Submitting country
Film title used in nomination
Language(s)
Original title
Director(s)
Result

Denmark
Dollars from the Sky
Danish
Guld og grønne skove
Gabriel Axel

Not Nominated

Egypt
Cairo Station
Arabic
باب الحديد (Bab el hadid)
Youssef Chahine

Not Nominated

France
My Uncle
French
Mon Oncle
Jacques Tati

Won Academy Award

West Germany
Arms and the Man
German
Helden
Franz Peter Wirth

Nominated

India
Madhumati
Hindi
मधुमती
Bimal Roy

Not Nominated

Italy
Big Deal on Madonna Street
Italian
I soliti ignoti
Mario Monicelli

Nominated

Japan
Ballad of Narayama
Japanese
楢山節考 (Narayama Bushikō)
Keisuke Kinoshita

Not Nominated

Spain
La Venganza
Spanish
La Venganza
Juan Antonio Bardem

Nominated

Sweden
The Magician
Swedish
Ansiktet
Ingmar Bergman

Not Nominated

Yugoslavia
The Road a Year Long
Italian
La strada lunga un anno (Cesta duga godinu dana)
Giuseppe De Santis

Nominated

Drawing on the accompanying table and the supporting text listed.

Give the answer to the question: What is the total land area of this country that submitted the film released in the UK as Persons Unknown ? Output only the correct answer as {"answer": "YOUR ANSWER"}. Do not introduce information beyond the provided sources.

Denmark ( Danish : Danmark , pronounced [ ˈtænmak ] ( listen ) ) , officially the Kingdom of Denmark , [ N 10 ] [ N 2 ] is a Nordic country in Northwest Europe . Denmark proper , which is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries , consists of a peninsula , Jutland , and an archipelago of 443 named islands , [ N 2 ] with the largest being Zealand , Funen and the North Jutlandic Island . The islands are characterised by flat , arable land and sandy coasts , low elevation and a temperate climate . The southernmost of the Scandinavian nations , Denmark lies southwest of Sweden and south of Norway , [ N 11 ] and is bordered to the south by Germany . The Kingdom of Denmark also includes two autonomous territories in the North Atlantic Ocean : the Faroe Islands and Greenland . Denmark has a total area of 42,924 km2 ( 16,573 sq mi ) , land area of 42,394 km2 ( 16,368 sq mi ) , and the total area including Greenland and the Faroe Islands is 2,210,579 km2 ( 853,509 sq mi ) , and a population of 5.8 million in Denmark proper ( Danish egentlige Danmark ) ( as of 2020 [ update ] ) . The unified kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 8th century as a proficient seafaring nation in the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea . Denmark , Sweden , and Norway were ruled together under one sovereign ruler in the Kalmar Union , established in 1397 and ending with Swedish secession in 1523 . The areas of Denmark and Norway remained under the same monarch until 1814 , Denmark-Norway . Beginning in the 17th century , there were several devastating wars with the Swedish Empire , ending with large cessions of territory to Sweden . After the Napoleonic Wars , Norway was ceded to Sweden , while Denmark kept the Faroe Islands , Greenland , and Iceland . In the 19th century there was a surge of nationalist movements , which were defeated in the First Schleswig War .
The Girls Are Willing ( Danish : Guld og grønne skove ) is a 1958 Danish comedy film directed by Gabriel Axel . It was chosen as Denmark 's official submission to the 31st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film , but did not manage to receive a nomination . It was also entered into the 8th Berlin International Film Festival . Guld og grønne skove was only Gabriel Axel 's third feature film as a director , and from it came out in 1958 , it took exactly 30 years before in 1988 he won his Academy Award for Babette 's Feast .
Danish ( /ˈdeɪnɪʃ/ ( listen ) ; dansk pronounced [ ˈtænˀsk ] ( listen ) , dansk sprog [ ˈtænˀsk ˈspʁɔu̯ˀ ] ) is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people , principally in Denmark , Greenland and in the region of Southern Schleswig in northern Germany , where it has minority language status . Also , minor Danish-speaking communities are found in Norway , Sweden , Spain , the United States , Canada , Brazil , and Argentina . Due to immigration and language shift in urban areas , around 15-20% of the population of Greenland speak Danish as their first language . Along with the other North Germanic languages , Danish is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples who lived in Scandinavia during the Viking Era . Danish , together with Swedish , derives from the East Norse dialect group , while the Middle Norwegian language before the influence of Danish and Norwegian Bokmål are classified as West Norse along with Faroese and Icelandic . A more recent classification based on mutual intelligibility separates modern spoken Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish as mainland Scandinavian , while Icelandic and Faroese are classified as insular Scandinavian . Until the 16th century , Danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from Schleswig to Scania with no standard variety or spelling conventions . With the Protestant Reformation and the introduction of printing , a standard language was developed which was based on the educated Copenhagen dialect . It spread through use in the education system and administration , though German and Latin continued to be the most important written languages well into the 17th century . Following the loss of territory to Germany and Sweden , a nationalist movement adopted the language as a token of Danish identity , and the language experienced a strong surge in use and popularity , with major works of literature produced in the 18th and 19th centuries . Today , traditional Danish dialects have all but disappeared , though regional variants of the standard language exist . The main differences in language are between generations , with youth language being particularly innovative .
Axel Gabriel Erik Mørch better known as Gabriel Axel ( 18 April 1918 - 9 February 2014 ) was a Danish film director , actor , writer and producer , best known for Babette 's Feast ( 1987 ) , which he wrote and directed .
Egypt ( /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ ( listen ) EE-jipt ; Arabic : مِصر Miṣr , Egyptian Arabic : مَصر Maṣr , Coptic : Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ Khēmi ) , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt , is a country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula . Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip ( Palestine ) and Israel to the northeast , the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea to the east , Sudan to the south , and Libya to the west . Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan , across the Red Sea lies Saudi Arabia , and across the Mediterranean lie Greece , Turkey and Cyprus , although none share a land border with Egypt . Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country , tracing its heritage back to the 6th-4th millennia BCE . Considered a cradle of civilisation , Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing , agriculture , urbanisation , organised religion and central government . Iconic monuments such as the Giza Necropolis and its Great Sphinx , as well the ruins of Memphis , Thebes , Karnak , and the Valley of the Kings , reflect this legacy and remain a significant focus of scientific and popular interest . Egypt 's long and rich cultural heritage is an integral part of its national identity , which has endured , and often assimilated , various foreign influences , including Greek , Persian , Roman , Arab , Ottoman Turkish , and Nubian . Egypt was an early and important centre of Christianity , but was largely Islamised in the seventh century and remains a predominantly Muslim country , albeit with a significant Christian minority . From the 16th to the beginning of the 20th century , Egypt was ruled by foreign imperial powers : The Ottoman Empire and the British Empire . Modern Egypt dates back to 1922 , when it gained nominal independence from the British Empire as a monarchy . However , British military occupation of Egypt continued , and many Egyptians believed that the monarchy was an instrument of British colonialism . Following the 1952 revolution , Egypt expelled British soldiers and bureaucrats and ended British occupation , nationalized the British-held Suez Canal , exiled King Farouk and his family , and declared itself a republic .
Cairo Station , also called The Iron Gate ( Arabic : باب الحديد Bāb al-Ḥadīd ) , is a 1958 Egyptian drama film directed by Youssef Chahine . It was entered into the 8th Berlin International Film Festival . The film was selected as the Egyptian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 31st Academy Awards , but was not accepted as a nominee .
Arabic ( Arabic : اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , al-ʿarabiyyah , [ al ʕaraˈbijːa ] ( listen ) or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , [ ˈʕarabiː ] ( listen ) or [ ʕaraˈbij ] ) is a Semitic language that first emerged in the 1st to 4th centuries CE . It is now the lingua franca of the Arab world . It is named after the Arabs , a term initially used to describe peoples living in the area bounded by Mesopotamia in the east and the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west , in Northwestern Arabia and in the Sinai Peninsula . The ISO assigns language codes to thirty varieties of Arabic , including its standard form , Modern Standard Arabic , also referred to as Literary Arabic , which is modernized Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists ; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic , but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ , the purest Arabic ) or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ) . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities and is used to varying degrees in workplaces , government and the media . Arabic , in its standard form , is the official language of 26 states , as well as the liturgical language of the religion of Islam , since the Quran and Hadith were written in Arabic . During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe , especially in science , mathematics and philosophy . As a result , many European languages have also borrowed many words from it . Arabic influence , mainly in vocabulary , is seen in European languages - mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese and Catalan - owing to both the proximity of Christian European and Muslim Arab civilizations and almost 800 years of Arabic culture and language presence in the Iberian Peninsula , referred to in Arabic as al-Andalus . Sicilian has about 500 Arabic words , many of which relate to agriculture and related activities , [ full citation needed ] as a legacy of the Emirate of Sicily from the mid-9th to mid-10th centuries , while Maltese language is a Semitic language developed from a dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages , including Greek and Bulgarian , have also acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish .
Youssef Chahine ( Arabic : يوسف شاهين ; 25 January 1926 - 27 July 2008 ) was an Egyptian film director . He was active in the Egyptian film industry from 1950 until his death . A winner of the Cannes 50th Anniversary Award ( for lifetime achievement ) , Chahine was credited with launching the career of actor Omar Sharif . A well regarded director with critics , he was often present at film festivals during the earlier decades of his work , Chahine gained his largest international audiences as one of the co-directors of 11'901 September 11 ( 2002 ) .
France ( French : [ fʁɑ̃s ] ( listen ) ) , officially the French Republic ( French : République française , pronounced [ ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛːz ] ( listen ) ) , is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories . [ XIII ] The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea , and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean . It is bordered by Belgium , Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast , Switzerland and Italy to the east , and Andorra and Spain to the south . The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic , Pacific and Indian oceans . The country 's 18 integral regions ( five of which are situated overseas ) span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres ( 248,573 sq mi ) and a total population of 67.02 million ( as of July 2019 [ update ] ) . France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris , the country 's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre . Other major urban areas include Lyon , Marseille , Toulouse , Bordeaux , Lille and Nice . France , including its overseas territories , has the most number of time zones of any country , with a total of 12 . During the Iron Age , what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls , a Celtic people . Rome annexed the area in 51 BC , holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476 , who formed the Kingdom of Francia . The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into East Francia , Middle Francia and West Francia . West Francia , which became the Kingdom of France in 987 , emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages , following its victory in the Hundred Years ' War ( 1337-1453 ) .
Mon Oncle ( French pronunciation : ​ [ mɔ̃ nɔ̃kl ] ; My Uncle ) is a 1958 comedy film by French filmmaker Jacques Tati . The first of Tati 's films to be released in colour , Mon Oncle won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film , a Special Prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival , and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film , receiving more honors than any of Tati 's other cinematic works . The film centers on the socially awkward yet lovable character of Monsieur Hulot and his quixotic struggle with postwar France 's infatuation with modern architecture , mechanical efficiency and consumerism . As with most Tati films , Mon Oncle is largely a visual comedy ; color and lighting are employed to help tell the story . The dialogue in Mon Oncle is barely audible , and largely subordinated to the role of a sound effect . The drifting noises of heated arguments and idle banter complement other sounds and the physical movements of the characters , intensifying comedic effect . The complex soundtrack also uses music to characterize environments , including a lively musical theme that represents Hulot 's world of comical inefficiency and freedom . [ citation needed ] At its debut in 1958 in France , Mon Oncle was denounced by some critics for what they viewed as a reactionary or even poujadiste view of an emerging French consumer society , which had lately embraced a new wave of industrial modernization and a more rigid social structure . However , this criticism soon gave way in the face of the film 's huge popularity in France and abroad - even in the U.S. , where rampant discretionary consumption and a recession had caused those on both the right and the left to question the economic and social values of the era . The film was another big success for Tati with a total of 4,576,928 admissions in France .
French ( le français [ lə fʁɑ̃sɛ ] or la langue française [ la lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz ] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family . It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire , as did all Romance languages . French evolved from Gallo-Romance , the spoken Latin in Gaul , and more specifically in Northern Gaul . Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl - languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium , which French ( Francien ) has largely supplanted . French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic ) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders . Today , owing to France 's past overseas expansion , there are numerous French-based creole languages , most notably Haitian Creole . A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French . French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents , most of which are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie ( OIF ) , the community of 84 countries which share the official use or teaching of French . It is spoken as a first language ( in descending order of the number of speakers ) in France , the Canadian provinces of Quebec , Ontario and New Brunswick as well as other Francophone regions , Belgium ( Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region ) , western Switzerland ( cantons of Bern , Fribourg , Geneva , Jura , Neuchâtel , Vaud , Valais ) , Monaco , partly in Luxembourg , the states of Louisiana , Maine , New Hampshire and Vermont in the United States , and in northwestern Italy ( region of Aosta Valley ) , and by various communities elsewhere . In 2015 , approximately 40% of the francophone population ( including L2 and partial speakers ) lived in Europe , 35% in sub-Saharan Africa , 15% in North Africa and the Middle East , 8% in the Americas , and 1% in Asia and Oceania . French is the fourth most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union . Of Europeans who speak other languages natively , approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as a second language .
Jacques Tati ( French : [ tati ] ; born Jacques Tatischeff , pronounced [ tatiʃɛf ] ; 9 October 1907 - 5 November 1982 ) was a French mime , filmmaker , actor , and screenwriter . Throughout his long career , he worked as a comic actor , writer , and director . In a poll conducted by Entertainment Weekly of the Greatest Movie Directors , Tati was voted the 46th greatest of all time . With only six feature-length films to his credit as director , he directed fewer films than any other director on this list of 50 . Tati 's Playtime ( 1967 ) ranked 43rd in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics ' poll of the greatest films ever made . As David Bellos puts it , Tati , from l'Ecole des facteurs to Playtime , is the epitome of what an auteur is ( in film theory ) supposed to be : the controlling mind behind a vision of the world on film .
West Germany was the informal name for the Federal Republic of Germany , a country in Western Europe , in the period between its formation on 23 May 1949 and German reunification on 3 October 1990 . During this Cold War period , the western portion of Germany was part of the Western Bloc . The Federal Republic was created during the Allied occupation of Germany after World War II , established from eleven states formed in the three Allied zones of occupation held by the United States , the United Kingdom and France . Its ( provisional ) capital was the city of Bonn . The Cold War era West Germany is also retrospectively designated the Bonn Republic . At the onset of the Cold War , Europe was divided among the Western and Eastern blocs . Germany was de facto divided into two countries and two special territories , the Saarland and a divided Berlin . Initially , the Federal Republic of Germany claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany , considering itself to be the sole democratically reorganised continuation of the 1871-1945 German Reich . It took the line that the German Democratic Republic ( GDR ) was an illegally constituted puppet state . Though the GDR did hold regular elections , these were neither free nor fair . From the West German perspective , the GDR was therefore illegitimate . Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952 , and the Saarland joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957 .
Arms and the Man or Heroes ( German : Helden ) is a 1958 West German historical comedy film directed by Franz Peter Wirth and based on the play of the same name by George Bernard Shaw . It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film . It was also entered into the 1959 Cannes Film Festival . The film 's sets were designed by the art director Hermann Warm . It was shot at the Bavaria Studios in Munich .
German ( Deutsch , pronounced [ dɔʏtʃ ] ( listen ) ) is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe . It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , South Tyrol in Italy , the German-speaking Community of Belgium and Liechtenstein . It is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland . The languages that are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch , including Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , Low German/Low Saxon , Luxembourgish , and Yiddish . There are strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish , Norwegian and Swedish , although those belong to the North Germanic group . German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language , after English . One of the major languages of the world , German is a native language to almost 100 million people worldwide and the most widely spoken native language in the European Union . German is the third most commonly spoken foreign language in the EU after English and French , making it the second biggest language in the EU in terms of overall speakers . German is also the second most widely taught foreign language in the EU after English at primary school level ( but third after English and French at lower secondary level ) , the fourth most widely taught non-English language in the US ( after Spanish , French and American Sign Language ) , and the second most commonly used scientific language as well as the third most widely used language on websites after English and Russian . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books , with one tenth of all books ( including e-books ) in the world being published in the German language . In the United Kingdom , German and French are the most sought-after foreign languages for businesses ( with 49% and 50% of businesses identifying these two languages as the most useful , respectively ) . German is an inflected language with four cases for nouns , pronouns and adjectives ( nominative , accusative , genitive , dative ) , three genders ( masculine , feminine , neuter ) , two numbers ( singular , plural ) , and strong and weak verbs .
Franz Peter Wirth ( 22 September 1919 in Munich - 17 October 1999 in Berg , Upper Bavaria ) was a German film director and screenwriter . His film Helden was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1958 .
India ( Hindi : Bhārat ) , officially the Republic of India ( Hindi : Bhārat Gaṇarājya ) , is a country in South Asia . It is the seventh-largest country by area , the second-most populous country , and the most populous democracy in the world . Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south , the Arabian Sea on the southwest , and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast , it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west ; [ e ] China , Nepal , and Bhutan to the north ; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east . In the Indian Ocean , India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives ; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia . Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago . Their long occupation , initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers , has made the region highly diverse , second only to Africa in human genetic diversity . Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago , evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE . By 1200 BCE , an archaic form of Sanskrit , an Indo-European language , had diffused into India from the northwest , unfolding as the language of the Rigveda , and recording the dawning of Hinduism in India . The Dravidian languages of India were supplanted in the northern regions . By 400 BCE , stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism , and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen , proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity . Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires based in the Ganges Basin . Their collective era was suffused with wide-ranging creativity , but also marked by the declining status of women , and the incorporation of untouchability into an organised system of belief .
Madhumati is a 1958 Indian paranormal romance film directed and produced by Bimal Roy , and written by Ritwik Ghatak and Rajinder Singh Bedi . The film stars Dilip Kumar and Vyjayantimala in the lead roles , with Pran and Johnny Walker in supporting roles . The plot focuses on Anand , a modern man who falls in love with a tribal woman named Madhumati . They are unable to have a relationship during their lifetimes and are reincarnated . Madhumati was filmed in various Indian locations , including Ranikhet , Ghorakhal , Vaitarna Dam and Aarey Milk Colony . The soundtrack album was composed by Salil Chowdhury and the lyrics were written by Shailendra . The film was released on 12 September 1958 . It earned ₹40 million in India and became the highest-grossing Indian film of the year , and one of the most commercially successful and influential Indian films of all time . It received positive reviews from critics , who praised the soundtrack and the acting of the lead actors . Madhumati was one of the earliest films to deal with reincarnation , and was described by analysts as a potboiler that has a gothic and noir feel to it . It inspired later regional and international films that have reincarnation-based themes . It won nine Filmfare Awards ; including Best Film , Best Director , Best Music Director , Best Female Playback Singer , Best Dialogue , Best Art Direction and Best Cinematographer - the most awards for a single film at that time .
Hindi ( Devanagari : हिन्दी , IAST/ISO 15919 : Hindī ) or Modern Standard Hindi ( Devanagari : मानक हिन्दी , IAST/ISO 15919 : Mānak Hindī ) , is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in India and across the Indian subcontinent . Modern Hindi is the standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language , which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and other nearby areas of Northern India . Hindi , written in the Devanagari script , is one of the two official languages of the Government of India , along with the English language . It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India . Hindi is the lingua franca of the Hindi belt and to a lesser extent other parts of India ( usually in a simplified or pidginised variety such as Bazaar Hindustani or Haflong Hindi ) . Outside India , several other languages are recognised officially as Hindi but do not refer to the Standard Hindi language described here and instead descend from other dialects , such as Awadhi and Bhojpuri . Such languages include Fiji Hindi , which is official in Fiji , and Caribbean Hindustani , which is spoken in Trinidad and Tobago , Guyana , and Suriname . Apart from the script and formal vocabulary , spoken Hindi is mutually intelligible with standard Urdu , another recognised register of Hindustani as both share a common colloquial base . As a linguistic variety , Hindi is the fourth most-spoken first language in the world , after Mandarin , Spanish and English . Hindi alongside Urdu as Hindustani is the third most-spoken language in the world , after Mandarin and English .
Bimal Roy ( 12 July 1909 - 8 January 1966 ) was an Indian film director . He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films such as Do Bigha Zamin , Parineeta , Biraj Bahu , Madhumati , Sujata , Parakh and Bandini , making him an important director of Hindi cinema . Inspired by Italian neo-realistic cinema , he made Do Bigha Zamin after watching Vittorio De Sica 's Bicycle Thieves ( 1948 ) . His work is particularly known for his mise en scène which he employed to portray realism . He won a number of awards throughout his career , including eleven Filmfare Awards , two National Film Awards , and the International Prize of the Cannes Film Festival . Madhumati won 9 Filmfare Awards in 1958 , a record held for 37 years .
Italy ( Italian : Italia [ iˈtaːlja ] ( listen ) ) , officially the Italian Republic ( Italian : Repubblica Italiana [ reˈpubblika itaˈljaːna ] ) , is a European country consisting of a peninsula delimited by the Alps and surrounded by several islands . Italy is located in south-central Europe , and it is also considered a part of Western Europe . The country covers a total area of 301,340 km2 ( 116,350 sq mi ) and shares land borders with France , Switzerland , Austria , Slovenia , and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino . Italy has a territorial exclave in Switzerland ( Campione ) and a maritime exclave in the Tunisian Sea ( Lampedusa ) . With around 60 million inhabitants , Italy is the third-most populous member state of the European Union . The capital and largest city is Rome ; other major cities are Milan , Naples , Turin , Palermo , Genoa , Bologna , Florence and Venice . Due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean , Italy has historically been home to myriad peoples and cultures . In addition to the various ancient peoples dispersed throughout what is now modern-day Italy , the most predominant being the Indo-European Italic peoples who gave the peninsula its name , beginning from the classical era , Phoenicians and Carthaginians founded colonies mostly in insular Italy , Greeks established settlements in the so-called Magna Graecia of Southern Italy , while Etruscans and Celts inhabited central and northern Italy respectively . An Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC , which eventually became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People . The Roman Republic initially conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the Italian peninsula , eventually expanding and conquering parts of Europe , North Africa and Asia . By the first century BC , the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became a leading cultural , political and religious centre , inaugurating the Pax Romana , a period of more than 200 years during which Italy 's law , technology , economy , art , and literature developed . Italy remained the homeland of the Romans and the metropole of the empire , whose legacy can also be observed in the global distribution of culture , governments , Christianity and the Latin script .
Big Deal on Madonna Street ( Italian : I soliti ignoti , also released as Persons Unknown in the UK ) is a 1958 Italian comedy caper film directed by Mario Monicelli , and considered to be among the masterpieces of Italian cinema . Its original title translates as the usual unknown persons , a journalistic and bureaucratic euphemism for unidentified criminals . The film is a comedy about a group of small-time thieves and ne'er-do-wells who bungle an attempt to burgle a pawn shop in Rome . The five hapless would-be burglars are played by Vittorio Gassman , Renato Salvatori , Carlo Pisacane , Tiberio Murgia and Marcello Mastroianni . The careers of both Gassman and Mastroianni were considerably helped by the success of the film , Gassman in particular , since before then he was not deemed suitable for comedic roles . Claudia Cardinale featured in a minor role ( a chaste , black-clad Sicilian girl , almost held prisoner at home by her overbearing brother , played by Murgia ) ; she would later rise to fame for other work . The film is also notable for its breezy jazz score by composer Piero Umiliani , who helped develop the style of the jazz soundtracks now considered characteristic of European films in the 1960s and 1970s . The producers were initially skeptical about the film 's success , and to boost audience interest highlighted the appearance of the famous comedian Totò in the original poster even though his character chooses to remain a consultant to the heist gang rather than joining it outright . The film is distributed in Region 1 by The Criterion Collection and for the Italian market in Region 2 by 20th Century Fox .
Italian ( italiano [ itaˈljaːno ] ( listen ) or lingua italiana [ ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna ] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family . Italian descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire and , together with Sardinian , is by most measures the closest language to it of the Romance languages . Italian is an official language in Italy , Switzerland ( where it is the first language in Canton Ticino and in the districts of Moesa and Bernina in Canton Graubünden ) , San Marino and Vatican City . It has an official minority status in western Istria ( Croatia and Slovenia ) . It formerly had official status in Albania , Malta , Monaco , Montenegro ( Kotor ) and Greece ( Ionian Islands and Dodecanese ) , and is generally understood in Corsica ( due to its close relation with the Tuscan-influenced local language ) and Savoie . It also used to be an official language in the former Italian East Africa and Italian North Africa , where it still plays a significant role in various sectors . Italian is also spoken by large expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries . Many speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian ( either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and other regional languages . Italian is a major European language , being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of the working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the fourth most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 69 million native speakers ( 13% of the EU population ) and it is spoken as a second language by 16 million EU citizens ( 3% ) . Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries ( such as Switzerland and Albania ) and on other continents , the total number of speakers is around 90 million .
Mario Monicelli ( Italian : [ ˈmaːrjo moniˈtʃɛlli ] ; 16 May 1915 - 29 November 2010 ) was an Italian director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the Commedia all'Italiana ( Comedy Italian style ) . He was nominated six times for an Oscar .
Japan ( Japanese : 日本 , Nippon [ ɲippoꜜɴ ] ( listen ) or Nihon [ ɲihoꜜɴ ] ( listen ) ) is an island country located in East Asia . It is bordered by the Sea of Japan to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east , and spans more than 3,000 kilometers ( 1,900 mi ) along the coast of the continent from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Philippine Sea in the south . Part of the Pacific Ring of Fire , Japan encompasses a stratovolcanic archipelago of about 6,852 islands , with five main islands ( Hokkaido , Honshu , Kyushu , Shikoku , and Okinawa ) comprising 97% of the country 's total area of 377,975 square kilometers ( 145,937 sq mi ) . Japan is officially divided into 47 prefectures and traditionally into eight regions . Approximately two-thirds of the country 's terrain is mountainous and heavily forested , and less than one-eighth of land is suitable for agriculture . Consequently , Japan is among the most densely populated and urbanized countries in the world , with over 90% of its population living in urban areas . The largest of these is the metropolitan area centered on the capital city of Tokyo , which is the most populous in the world and home to more than 38 million people . Japan itself is the world 's eleventh most populous country with a population of 126.2 million , of which 97.8% are ethnically Japanese . The kanji ( or Chinese characters ) that make up the name of Japan in the Japanese language mean sun origin ; in the Western world , the country is often known by the sobriquet Land of the Rising Sun . Periods of influence from other regions , primarily China , followed by periods of isolation , particularly from Western Europe , have characterized the history of Japan . While archaeological evidence indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period , the first written mention of the archipelago appears in Chinese texts from the first century AD . Between the fourth and ninth centuries , the kingdoms of Japan became gradually unified under an Emperor and imperial court based in Heian-kyō ( modern Kyoto ) .
The Ballad of Narayama ( 楢山節考 , Narayama-bushi Kō ) is a 1958 Japanese period film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita and based on the 1956 novella of the same name by Shichirō Fukazawa . The film explores the legendary practice of obasute , in which elderly people were carried to a mountain and abandoned to die .
Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo [ ɲihoŋɡo ] ( listen ) ) is an East Asian language spoken by about 128 million people , primarily in Japan , where it is the national language . It is a member of the Japonic ( or Japanese-Ryukyuan ) language family , and its relation to other languages , such as Korean , is debated . Japanese has been grouped with language families such as Ainu , Austroasiatic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance . Little is known of the language 's prehistory , or when it first appeared in Japan . Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words , but substantial texts did not appear until the 8th century . During the Heian period ( 794-1185 ) , Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese . Late Middle Japanese ( 1185-1600 ) included changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language , and the first appearance of European loanwords . The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo ( modern Tokyo ) region in the Early Modern Japanese period ( early 17th century-mid-19th century ) . Following the end of Japan 's self-imposed isolation in 1853 , the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly . English loanwords , in particular , have become frequent , and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated . Japanese is an agglutinative , mora-timed language with simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system , phonemic vowel and consonant length , and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject-object-verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words , and sentence structure is topic-comment .
Keisuke Kinoshita ( 木下 惠介 , Kinoshita Keisuke , December 5 , 1912 - December 30 , 1998 ) was a Japanese film director . Kinoshita was highly prolific , turning out some 42 films in the first 23 years of his career . For this , Kinoshita explained that he cant help it . Ideas for films have always just popped into my head like scraps of paper into a wastebasket . While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa , Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirō Ozu , he was a household figure in his home country , beloved by both critics and audiences from the 1940s to the 1960s .
Spain ( Spanish : España [ esˈpaɲa ] ( listen ) ) , officially the Kingdom of Spain ( Spanish : Reino de España ) , [ a ] [ b ] is a country in Southwestern Europe with some pockets of Spanish territory across the Strait of Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean . Its continental European territory is situated on the Iberian Peninsula . Its territory also includes two archipelagoes : the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa , and the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea . The African enclaves of Ceuta , Melilla , and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera make Spain the only European country to have a physical border with an African country ( Morocco ) . [ h ] Several small islands in the Alboran Sea are also part of Spanish territory . The country 's mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar ; to the north and northeast by France , Andorra , and the Bay of Biscay ; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean . With an area of 505,990 km2 ( 195,360 sq mi ) , Spain is the largest country in Southern Europe , the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union , and the fourth largest country in the European continent . By population ( about 47 million ) , Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union . Spain 's capital and largest city is Madrid ; other major urban areas include Barcelona , Valencia , Seville , Zaragoza , Málaga and Bilbao . Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago . Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician , Greek , Celtic and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE , after which the region was named Hispania , based on the earlier Phoenician name Sp ( a ) n or Spania . At the end of the Western Roman Empire the Germanic tribal confederations migrated from Central Europe , invaded the Iberian peninsula and established relatively independent realms in its western provinces , including the Suebi , Alans and Vandals .
Vengeance ( Spanish : La venganza ) is a 1958 Spanish drama film directed by Juan Antonio Bardem . It was co-produced with Italy , starring Italian Raf Vallone . Francisco Rabal narrates the film . It was shown at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival but not released in Spain until the following year . The film had serious troubles with Spanish censorship . Bardem even went to prison and it was an international scandal . It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film .
Spanish ( /ˈspænɪʃ/ ( listen ) ; español ( help·info ) ) , or Castilian ( /kæˈstɪliən/ ( listen ) , castellano ( help·info ) ) , is a Romance language that originated in the Iberian Peninsula and today has over 483 million native speakers , mainly in Spain and the Americas . It is a global language , the world 's second-most spoken native language , after Mandarin Chinese , and the world 's fourth-most spoken language , after Mandarin Chinese , English and Hindi . Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages , which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century . The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century , and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo , a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile , in the 13th century . Beginning in 1492 , the Spanish language was taken to the viceroyalties of the Spanish Empire , most notably to the Americas , as well as territories in Africa , Oceania and the Philippines . A 1949 study by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei , analyzing the degree of difference from a language 's parent ( Latin , in the case of Romance languages ) by comparing phonology , inflection , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation , indicated the following percentages ( the higher the percentage , the greater the distance from Latin ) : In the case of Spanish , it is one of the closest Romance languages to Latin ( 20% distance ) , only behind Sardinian ( 8% distance ) and Italian ( 12% distance ) . Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin , including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek . Spanish vocabulary has been in contact with Arabic from an early date , having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula . With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin , this language makes up the second greatest vocabulary source after Latin itself . It has also been influenced by Basque , Iberian , Celtiberian , Visigothic , and by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages . Additionally , it has absorbed vocabulary from other languages , particularly other Romance languages - French , Italian , Andalusi Romance , Portuguese , Galician , Catalan , Occitan , and Sardinian - as well as from Quechua , Nahuatl , and other indigenous languages of the Americas . Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations .
Juan Antonio Bardem Muñoz ( 2 June 1922 - 30 October 2002 ) was a Spanish film director and screen writer . He was a member of the Communist Party . Bardem was best known for Muerte de un ciclista ( 1955 ) which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival , and El puente ( 1977 ) which won the Golden Prize at the 10th Moscow International Film Festival . His 1979 film Seven Days in January won the Golden Prize at the 11th Moscow International Film Festival . In 1981 he was a member of the jury at the 12th Moscow International Film Festival . In 1993 he was a member of the jury at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival . In 1953 he and Luis García Berlanga founded a film magazine , Objetivo , which existed until 1956 . Bardem is the father of director Miguel Bardem and uncle of actor Javier Bardem . He died of complications resulting from liver disease .
Sweden ( Swedish : Sverige [ ˈsvæ̌rjɛ ] ( listen ) ) , officially the Kingdom of Sweden ( Swedish : Konungariket Sverige [ ˈkôːnɵŋaˌriːkɛt ˈsvæ̌rjɛ ] ( listen ) ) , is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe . It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east , and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund Strait . At 450,295 square kilometres ( 173,860 sq mi ) , Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe , the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area . The capital city is Stockholm . Sweden has a total population of 10.3 million of which 2.5 million have a foreign background . Persons who have foreign backgrounds are defined as persons who are foreign born , or born in Sweden with foreign born parents . It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre ( 57/sq mi ) and the highest urban concentration is in the central and southern half of the country . Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia . The climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence . In spite of the high latitude , Sweden often has warm continental summers , being located in between the North Atlantic , the Baltic Sea and the vast Eurasian Russian landmass . The general climate and environment varies significantly from the south and north due to the vast latitudal difference and much of Sweden has reliably cold and snowy winters . Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural , while the north is heavily forested and includes a portion of the Scandinavian Mountains .
Ansiktet ( lit . Swedish : The Face ) , also released as The Magician , is a 1958 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman , and starring Max von Sydow and Ingrid Thulin . The plot follows a traveling magician named Albert Vogler , whose allegedly supernatural live shows are challenged by the skeptical townspeople of a small village . Blending elements of psychological drama and horror , the film was distantly inspired by G. K. Chesterton 's play Magic , which Bergman numbered among his favourites . Bergman staged a theatre production of Magic in Swedish at one point . [ citation needed ] The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 31st Academy Awards , but was not accepted as a nominee .
Swedish ( svenska [ ˈsvɛ̂nːska ] ( listen ) ) is a North Germanic language spoken natively by 10 million people , predominantly in Sweden ( as the sole official language ) and in parts of Finland , where it has equal legal standing with Finnish . It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish , although the degree of mutual intelligibility is largely dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker . Written Norwegian and Danish are usually more easily understood by Swedish speakers than the spoken languages , due to the differences in tone , accent and intonation . Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era . It has the most speakers of the North Germanic languages . Standard Swedish , spoken by most Swedes , is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century . While distinct regional varieties descending from the older rural dialects still exist , the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized . The standard word order is , as in most Germanic languages , V2 , which means that the finite verb ( V ) appears in the second position ( 2 ) of a declarative main clause . Swedish morphology is similar to English ; that is , words have comparatively few inflections . Swedish has two genders and is generally seen to have two grammatical cases - nominative and genitive ( except for pronouns that , as in English , also are inflected in the object form ) - although it is debated if the genitive in Swedish should be seen as a genitive case or just the nominative plus the so-called genitive s , then seen as a clitic . Swedish has two grammatical numbers - plural and singular . Adjectives have discrete comparative and superlative forms and are also inflected according to gender , number and definiteness .
Ernst Ingmar Bergman [ a ] ( 14 July 1918 - 30 July 2007 ) was a Swedish director , writer , and producer who worked in film , television , theatre and radio . Considered to be among the most accomplished and influential filmmakers of all time , Bergman 's films include Smiles of a Summer Night ( 1955 ) , The Seventh Seal ( 1957 ) , Wild Strawberries ( 1957 ) , Persona ( 1966 ) , Cries and Whispers ( 1972 ) , Scenes from a Marriage ( 1973 ) , and Fanny and Alexander ( 1982 ) ; the last two exist in extended television versions . Bergman directed over sixty films and documentaries for cinematic release and for television screenings , most of which he also wrote . He also directed over 170 plays . He eventually forged a creative partnership with his cinematographers Gunnar Fischer and Sven Nykvist . Among his company of actors were Harriet and Bibi Andersson , Liv Ullmann , Gunnar Björnstrand , Erland Josephson , Ingrid Thulin and Max von Sydow . Most of his films were set in Sweden , and many films from Through a Glass Darkly ( 1961 ) onward were filmed on the island of Fårö . Philip French referred to Bergman as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century . he found in literature and the performing arts a way of both recreating and questioning the human condition . Director Martin Scorsese commented ; If you were alive in the 50s and the 60s and of a certain age , a teenager on your way to becoming an adult , and you wanted to make movies , I do n't see how you could n't be influenced by Bergman .It 's impossible to overestimate the effect that those films had on people .
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ( SFRY ) , also known as SFR Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia , was a country located in Central and Southeastern Europe that existed from its foundation in the aftermath of World War II until its dissolution in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars . Covering an area of 255,804 km² ( 98,766 sq mi ) , the SFRY was bordered by the Adriatic Sea and Italy to the west , Austria and Hungary to the north , Bulgaria and Romania to the east , and Albania and Greece to the south . The nation was a socialist state and a federation governed by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and made up of six socialist republics - Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia , Macedonia , Montenegro , Serbia , and Slovenia - with Belgrade as its capital . In addition , it included two autonomous provinces within Serbia : Kosovo and Vojvodina . The SFRY 's origin is traced to 26 November 1942 , when the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia was formed during World War II . On 29 November 1945 , the Federal People 's Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed after the deposition of King Peter II , thus ending the monarchy . Until 1948 , the new communist government originally sided with the Eastern Bloc under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito at the beginning of the Cold War , but after the Tito-Stalin split of 1948 , Yugoslavia pursued a policy of neutrality . It became one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement , and transitioned from a command economy to market-based socialism . The SFRY maintained neutrality during the Cold War as part of its foreign policy . It was a founding member of CERN , the United Nations , Non-Aligned Movement , OSCE , IFAD , WTO , Eutelsat , and BTWC . Following the death of Tito on 4 May 1980 , the Yugoslav economy started to collapse , which increased unemployment and inflation . The economic crisis led to a rise in ethnic nationalism in the late 1980s and early 1990s ; dissidence resulted among the multiple ethnicities within the constituent republics .
The Road a Year Long ( Italian : La strada lunga un anno , Serbo-Croatian : Cesta duga godinu dana ) is a 1958 film directed by Giuseppe De Santis . A Yugoslavian-Italian co-production , it was Yugoslavia 's first ever submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the award at the 31st Academy Awards in April 1959 . It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film . For his performance Massimo Girotti was awarded best actor at the San Francisco International Film Festival .
Giuseppe De Santis ( 11 February 1917 - 16 May 1997 ) was an Italian film director . One of the most idealistic neorealist filmmakers of the 1940s and 1950s , he wrote and directed films punctuated by ardent cries for social reform . He was the brother of Italian cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis . His wife was Gordana Miletic , a Yugoslav actress and former ballet dancer .