India is Bollywood. Japan is contemplative cinema. China stands for symbolic, suggestive, colourful "electric shadows". South Korea offers the most exciting genre mix of all... One could try to approach Asian cinema in this way - and yet one would only fall hastily into striking catchwords that do not even come close to representing the narrative richness or the diversity of genres and styles of Asian cinema. Each country on the Asian continent has its own long, cultural-political film history; many legendary directors stand for particular epochs of cinematic art in India, China, Vietnam or Japan. In India, but not only there, a primarily commercially oriented film production has developed; South Korea, for example, is the fifth largest cinema market in the world, and despite the commercial success, the films from there hardly seem to have to compromise on their artistic standards. And yet: if it weren't for the big international film festivals - many masterpieces from Asia would remain undiscovered in this country! Even the American "Oscars" have long since been unable to overlook film art from Asia - from the animation art of a Hayao Miyazaki to the globally celebrated film "Drive My Car" by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi. Never before has Asian cinema been so widely recognised in Europe as it is currently. Our collection can only throw a few spotlights on the artistic richness of Asian films. And yet each film in this collection opens a window into a rich, fascinating, must-discover cinematic world.