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The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has always believed that preserving the world’s film heritage is a cultural mission of vital importance and film restoration efforts have always been a primary beneficiary of HFPA grants. That mission continued this year with a donation of $350,000 to the Film Foundation, which was accepted at the HFPA’s Installation and Grants lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel by Steven Spielberg.

A long-standing tradition of the Hollywood Foreign Press has been to encourage our journalists to attend film festivals all over the world for the purpose of cultural exchange, to explain the goals of our association, to meet international filmmakers and invite them to submit their movies for Golden Globe consideration. We represent the HFPA at important international events like Cannes, Venice, Berlin or Sundance; we also recognize smaller festivals, where a shared passion for the art of cinema creates an exciting and fertile atmosphere.

Danish director Gabriel Axel, a Golden globe nominee for his Babette's Feast (1987) died last month at age 95. His was one of seven Golden Globes nominations garnered by Danish films over the history of the Awards, from The Word, (Carl Theodor Dreyer's penultimate movie, and his only critical and commercial success) that won Best Foreign Film in 1956, to Susanne Bier's In a Better World, the 2011 winner.

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The 64th Berlin International Film Festival kicks off today and runs through February 16, bringing international premiers, a slew of sales and acquisitions and the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s much-anticipated The Grand Budapest Hotel. As the first major fest of the year after Sundance, the Berlinale plays host to the European Film Market, sure to be buzzing with business.

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Last Year Pablo Larain’s No with Gael García Bernal received a well deserved Academy Award nomination. This year Gloria directed by Sebastián Lelio was among the year’s best reviewed foreign language entries (and earned veteran Chilean actress Paulina García the prestigious Best Actress Silver Lion in Berlin.

As representatives of press outlets from more than 50 countries worldwide, members of the Hollywood Foreign Press have always attached great value to the Foreign Film category. Not only are non-English language movies indicative of the intrinsically international nature of the film business and examples of global excellence, they are also windows into humanity in all its facets and idioms, contributing, as only art can, to further understanding between all people.

One of the most flourishing cinema industries found today is in India. But the pioneers of the industry were actually foreigners.

Among the five films nominated in the Best Foreign Language category, The Hunt from Denmark is easily the darkest. It introduces us to a cast of sympathetic characters leading normal lives in a rural Danish town and then takes us on an unsettling journey as the community is torn apart by doubt and suspicion.