While on a visit to Israel to collect a million-dollar award from Tel Aviv University, American filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen said that they did not believe that boycotting Israel would solve political problems. The brothers' Jewish heritage is on display in a number of their films, most obviously in 'A Serious Man'.

Cannes celebrated Bollywood with the midnight screening of a specially prepared montage of great moments in Hindi musical cinema."Bollywood: The World's Greatest Love Story" was put together to make up for a perennial dearth of Indian films in competition at the world's biggest film event.

From chic styles to cuisine, from cinema to comics, Taiwan is trying to project its soft power across the globe in an effort to step out of China's shadow.

The international film business can bridge a lot of cultural divides. But can it knock down one of the great walls of cinema culture that stands between China and the U.S.? The people behind the Chinese epic "The Heroes of Nanking" hope their movie can help create a new pipeline.

The Nobel Prize − that ultimate soft-power statement − must now compete with alternative human rights awards. Gadhafi could bestow his own award on Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from one moral paragon to another.

DUBAI --- Take a look at Barack Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo. It was beautifully written and radiated good intentions. The U.S. government relied heavily on new media tools to disseminate it throughout the Arab world and beyond. Arab opinion of Obama improved significantly; and then it dropped like a rock.

Taiwan has a plan to compete with China in the international cultural propaganda stakes: by opening “Taiwan Academies” that will teach the Chinese language with a strong focus on traditional characters and culture.

Some tourist destinations thrown into the media glare by political turmoil or natural disasters are starting to incorporate these events into their marketing campaigns. Take, for instance, Chile's re-branded campaign slogan ‘Chile is good for you’.