Now showing: a celebration of film around the world. We’re offering a double bill of documentaries and features, with memoirs from international directors and screenwriters complemented by tales of characters immersed in a world of film. From close-up to wide angle, on location and off in a dream world, these writers provide a panoramic view of the cinematic world. In two stories of film’s international reach, Ryu Murakami’s yakuza finds a soulmate in small-town Texas, while João Paulo Cuenca’s Brazilian slacker aspires to la dolce vita. Montreal’s Robert Paquin describes the delicate art of dubbing profanity. Japanese director Nishikawa Miwa recalls the nightmare origins of her Sway, and Michelangelo Antonioni’s assistant director Flavio Niccolini shares his diary from the set of the masterpiece Red Desert. Strega Prize-winner and screenwriter Domenico Starnone recounts the beginning of his lifelong infatuation with film. And the great Saadat Hasan Manto pens an amused portrait of the Pakistani star Noor Jehan. We hope you’ll find this issue a blockbuster.

Elsewhere, in poetry from three continents, Algeria’s Habib Tengour reflects on exile and identity, Australia’s Cobbin Dale spins an Aboriginal folk tale, and Vietnam’s Nguyen Phan Que Mai moves between earth and sky. In the second installment of “Our Man in Madrid,” Peruvian Jorge Eduardo Benavides depicts a society caught in the grip of a deadly presence. In another story of menacing elements,  Eom Jeong-Hui and Ko Im-Hong return with the second chapter of their graphic novel The Secret of Frequency A.