After doing the film-festival rounds (Venice, Toronto, Pusan), the Gong Li-Jeremy Irons starrer Chinese Box finally made it to mainstream American movie screens last week.

CNN: PEOPLE

Latin American movie-makers working abroad such as the Oscar-winning Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, who made the spellbinding "Pan's Labyrinth", have also helped put the continent on the map.

CNN: Latin tempo reverberates through film world

There is, certainly, a great movie to be made about a young baseball player from the islands or South America who enters an American-run baseball academy, gets a tryout with a minor-league franchise, suffers the cultural dislocations of American wealth and strangeness, and then, on the verge of success, hits a rock somewhere and capsizes before he can get to the majors.

NEWYORKER: Sugar