Authored by twenty-nine eminent historians and film critics, almost all of them from the countries they are writing about, these essays bring together the history and the current trends in the cinemas of thirty countries of Asia-from Japan to India to Turkey and Kazakhstan to Indonesia. Asian cinemas stormed on to the world scene with an emphatic flourish some two decades ago. Overnight, the names of hitherto lesser know Asian directors and stars entered the film vocabulary of film circles all over the world. In Asia itself, new festivals sprang up, while on an international level, Asian films garnered awards and accolade. But their evolution as an art form, the cultural and political milieu in which they ware made, the factors that propelled them or sometimes led to their decline, still remained largely unknown. It is this lacunae that The Cinemas Of Asia, the first comprehensive book of its kind, strives to fill.