AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DVDS

PASSPORT, maps, currency, camera, diarrhoea tablets? Put them back in the bottom drawer. For this round-the-world trip, you won't need to leave the sofa or reach further than the remote control. Over the next 80 weeks, the Sunday Herald will be your guide on a virtual odyssey through the history and geography of world cinema. Part Phineas Fogg, part Barry Norman, it's an entire global tour in 80 movies ­ all of the major cinematic movements, film styles and national industries from the silent era to the present day in a set of DVDs that would barely take up two shelves on your bookcase.

They won't necessarily be the most famous films from any particular country or even the ones that critics have decreed are a filmmaker's absolute masterpiece. Instead, grouped together, they'll form a complete crash course for anyone intrigued but slightly intimidated by the wall of subtitled movies that faces them when they walk into a music store or surf the online rental sites. This is not a high-brow exercise in art-house name-dropping for hardened movie buffs; it's an accessible starting point for a foray into everything that's genuinely exciting about cinema, with all the featured DVDs easily available to buy or rent.