A Taiwanese filmmaker's tribute to a celebrated French short soared easily to the top of the indie charts this weekend. Flight of the Red Balloon (IFC Films), directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, averaged $17,450 at the two screens where it played in Manhattan, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City News. Jeffrey M. Anderson wrote: "Like Hou's more recent work, Flight of the Red Balloon moves a little more toward international accessibility and away from his early, uniquely Taiwanese stories." Juliette Binoche stars as a frazzled writer and performer with a troupe of puppeteers who hires a Taiwanese film student as a nanny for her young son.

Surprisingly, My Blueberry Nights (The Weinstein Co.) finished #2 for the weekend, grossing an average of $11,380 per screen at six locations. Wong Kar Wai's first English-language film met with lukewarm reaction at Cannes last year; the director tinkered with the editing, but the end result is still not very satisfying, according to Nick Schager. He wrote that the "lovelorn dilemmas [of the female characters] ... consistently come off as precious and trifling, which is dispiriting considering that Wong and [director of photography Darius] Khondji make everything look and feel so rapturous and enticing that one wants to believe the proceedings are of consequence." Nora Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman are featured.

If I said to you "Want to go to Jerusalem?" your first reaction probably wouldn't be: "What movies are playing there?" but that's the way my diseased mind works. So I did a little surfing and found the site for the Jerusalem Cinematheque. They show up to five different films every day, and the programs are fascinating. For example, on Monday, August 20, they're screening Because I Said So (Diane Keaton today), Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Diane Keaton in the '70s), Odette Toulemonde (a recent comedy from France/Belgium) and Le Process de Jeanne D'Arc (Robert Bresson's 1962 version). Next Friday they're showing the latest Pirates of the Caribbean, two by David Fincher (Zodiac and Se7en) and the 1938 Pygmalion. Other titles this month include lesser-seen films by Samuel Fuller, Peter Bogdanovich and Clint Eastwood, plus a good selection from France and India.

As far as mainstream movies go, you can rest assured that Israelis are also subjected to the likes of Rush Hour 3, Bratz: The Movie and No Reservations. (They're even showing Evan Almighty.) But there are also Israeli titles like The Secrets ("two women discover their own voices in a repressive orthodox culture"), Beaufort (tense months for young soldiers just before Israel pulled out of Lebanon), Noodle (Mili Avatal (pictured) as a widowed flight attendant dealing with an abandoned Chinese boy), Stefan Braun (a very personal doc in which a man grieves for his lost love), News From Home (Amos Gitai's doc about memory and identity) and Jellyfish (an acclaimed drama about three women in Tel Aviv).

Beyond that generous assortment to choose from, a number of independent foreign films are playing. Some have already opened in the US (La Vie en Rose, The Boss of It All, The Golden Door, Private Fears in Public Places, After the Wedding, Sunflower ), while others have not (Irina Palm, Hunting and Gathering). Overall, I'd have to say that Jerusalem has an enviable variety of films playing.

What kind of movies will be playing at the brand new Kansai International Film Festival in Osaka, Japan next month? If you're a visual-type person, go to the site, select your language and then allow the neat little embedded Quicktime trailer to tease your eyeballs. The organizers say they wanted to feature "a different spin on Japanese films, mixing both the east and west in cinema." They explain that most people don't realize dozens of independent films focusing on Japanese culture are made by Western directors each year; a few Western directors have even moved to Japan in order to explore the country by cinematic means. Motivated by a desire to highlight these lesser-known films, the small staff will present all 32 selections for free -- no charge, zip, nada -- which sounds like a pretty good deal. Let's see ... how much is air fare to Osaka?

What do you get for nothing? Mostly shorts, conveniently grouped into a variety of themes: experimental, documentary, local filmmakers, comedy, "Dark Side" and "Culture Clash," plus two screenings of "Wabi Sabi" films. That latter section is particularly intriguing for a Westerner; "wabi sabi" has been described as "a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience." Several feature-length films are also included. Jellyfish looks at an accordion-loving restaurant worker and his best friend, a constantly-dreaming mathematician. Rock N Tokyo documents Japanese rock and rollers Guitar Wolf (Wild Zero), The 5678's (Kill Bill: Vol. 1), Jet Boys and Nine. Bondi Tsumani "follows the psychedelic adventures of four punked-up manga-inspired Japanese characters ... as they travel up the East Coast of Australia." Biographies of the filmmakers can also be found on the site. The Kansai International Film Festival seizes the heart of Osaka during the weekend of August 24-26.