The story of To Each His Own Cinema
To Each His Own Cinema arrived in 2007 as a singular commission: the Cannes Film Festival's 60th anniversary needed a celebration, and the organizers decided the best tribute would be to hand the keys to cinema itself over to the masters who'd spent their lives behind the camera. What emerged was a 100-minute anthology of 34 short films—each exactly three minutes long—created by 36 directors representing five continents and 25 countries. These weren't documentaries about film history or talking-head retrospectives. Instead, each filmmaker was asked to answer a deceptively simple prompt: what does cinema mean to you right now? The result is something between a festival gift and a collective artistic statement—a declaration of love on the big screen, as the official tagline promises, though not every frame lands with equal force.
The premise itself is almost audacious in its ambition. You're asking Wim Wenders, Wong Kar-wai, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and dozens of others—directors who've spent entire careers exploring the possibilities of film—to distill their relationship with the medium into 180 seconds. Some respond with playful mischief. Others go abstract. A few seem genuinely moved by the invitation. The genius of the project is that it doesn't demand uniformity; instead, it celebrates the fracturing of perspective, the idea that cinema means something different to each artist, and that difference itself becomes the point.
How To Each His Own Cinema came together
The production involved collaboration between three major entities: Elzévir Films, StudioCanal, and ARTE, the Franco-German cultural broadcaster. Coordinating 36 directors across different continents, languages, and creative philosophies was no small feat—this wasn't a typical anthology where a producer wrangles contributors into a house style. Instead, each filmmaker was given freedom to interpret the brief however they saw fit. The result is genuinely international cinema: you'll find work from established European auteurs alongside rising talents from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. What's striking is how the film captures a specific moment in cinema history, early 2007, when filmmakers were beginning to grapple with digital technology, the rise of multiplexes, and questions about cinema's future in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.
The IMDb rating of 6.5/10 reflects the anthology's inherent unevenness—and that's not really a flaw so much as an honest assessment. Some shorts feel like finished artistic statements; others feel like sketches or experiments. That variability is part of the charm, though it also means the viewing experience can feel like channel-surfing through someone's personal film festival. The runtime of 100 minutes is deliberately compressed; there's no fat here, just a rapid-fire succession of perspectives. Movie OTT tracks where this title streams, and knowing that it's available across major platforms means you don't need to hunt through obscure DVD releases to experience what's essentially a time capsule of early-21st-century auteur cinema.
What makes To Each His Own Cinema stand out
The thing that separates this anthology from other multi-director projects is its unflinching focus on cinema as subject matter rather than cinema as a vessel for other stories. Most films about film tend to be meta—they reference other movies, play with genre conventions, or use cinema as a backdrop. Here, the filmmakers are actually grappling with what it means to sit in a theater, to experience moving images on a screen, to be transformed by light and shadow and sound. Many of the shorts are literally set in cinemas, with audiences occupying rows of seats. You'll see people watching, reacting, sometimes being startled or moved by what's happening on screen—a neat recursion, since you're watching them watch cinema while you're watching cinema.
What's particularly interesting is how the film acknowledges cinema's democratization. By the time 2007 rolled around, digital cameras were becoming affordable, YouTube was changing how people consumed video, and the theatrical experience was no longer the only way to encounter cinema. Some of the shorts feel like love songs to the theater itself—the communal aspect, the surrender to the dark. Others seem more skeptical or playful about cinema's future. I keep coming back to the fact that this project exists at all, that major studios and broadcasters were willing to fund something so openly experimental and unpredictable. It's a gesture that feels increasingly rare in contemporary filmmaking.
Critical reception has been mixed but thoughtful. Reviewers noted that you'll need genuine familiarity with arthouse cinema and film history to get the most from the experience—this isn't a gateway drug to cinema appreciation, but rather a conversation among insiders about what cinema means. That gatekeeping is worth acknowledging, though it's also part of the film's DNA. The shorts aren't designed to please everyone; they're designed to provoke thought and conversation among people who care deeply about the medium.
Where to stream To Each His Own Cinema online
To Each His Own Cinema is available on major OTT services, and you can check the Where to Watch widget at the top of this page to see exactly which platforms currently have it in your region. Availability fluctuates depending on licensing agreements, so it's worth checking Movie OTT's streaming tracker before settling in—there's nothing worse than getting excited about a film only to discover it's been rotated off your preferred service. The anthology format actually works well for streaming; you can watch the whole thing in one sitting, or dip in and out of individual shorts depending on your mood. That flexibility is one advantage streaming has over theatrical exhibition, where you'd be locked into the full 100 minutes.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Who are some of the notable directors featured in To Each His Own Cinema?
The anthology includes work from major international auteurs, though the full lineup spans 36 filmmakers across multiple continents. The project was specifically designed to gather pre-eminent directors from diverse backgrounds and film traditions, making it genuinely global in scope.
Q: Do I need to watch the shorts in order?
No—each short is self-contained and can be watched independently. That said, watching the full anthology in sequence gives you a sense of how different filmmakers approach the same theme, which creates an interesting cumulative effect.
Q: Is To Each His Own Cinema based on a true story?
It's not a narrative film with a plot in the traditional sense. Instead, it's a collection of short films exploring what cinema means to different directors. Think of it as an artistic essay rather than a story.
Q: What's the runtime of To Each His Own Cinema?
The total runtime is 100 minutes, with each of the 34 shorts running approximately three minutes in length.
Q: Why was To Each His Own Cinema commissioned?
The film was created to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, with filmmakers invited to share their perspective on cinema and the theatrical experience.
Final thoughts on To Each His Own Cinema
To Each His Own Cinema won't be for everyone—and honestly, that's kind of the point. It's a film made by and for people who've devoted their lives to cinema, a conversation about what the medium means at a particular historical moment. Some shorts will dazzle you; others might feel opaque or self-indulgent. But taken as a whole, it's a fascinating artifact: a snapshot of how major international filmmakers were thinking about their craft in 2007, before the streaming wars reshaped the industry entirely. If you're curious about cinema history, international filmmaking, or just want to spend 100 minutes with some of the world's most distinctive creative voices, it's absolutely worth your time.
