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What's your favorite film? Everyone has an answer to that question, easily accessible for dinner parties and first dates. (Stand by Me when I'm with friends; 12 Angry Men when I'm out to impress). But what if you had to pick the film that best represents you? You would want one that recognizes your successes without ignoring your failures. One that touches on your past while looking to your future. One that shows others who you are, what you're about, what you've done and what you have the potential to achieve. Not so easy now, is it?

That was the challenge put to the 13 countries vying for a spot in the European Union come 2004. The result was the "New Europe Film Season," which ran at London's Barbican Centre two weeks ago. As part of a campaign to bring attention to the upcoming E.U. enlargement, the British Foreign Office put together the season to showcase the cinematic talents of 12 of the 13 countries hoping to become part of the E.U. Ambassadors from each of the countries (except for Malta which, although it provides striking locations for many films, doesn't have its own industry) chose the one film they believe best represents their countries. The films in the season ranged from year-old films to those made decades ago, present-day stories to period pieces, melodramas to quiet personal histories. And they showed a selection of talent, intelligence, humor and style that equals much of what comes from within Europe today.

Understandably, many countries picked films that had already been heralded by outsiders via international awards and nominations. Divided We Fall, from the Czech Republic, was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last year. The film that opened the season, Poland's The Promised Land was nominated for the same award in 1976. Both focus on their countries' political histories — one is a dark comedy dealing with the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia; the other follows three friends through revolution at the end of the 19th century — with a deft balance between tragedy and humor. As movies that follow people instead of battle (not a drop of blood is shed in Divided We Fall), they show sensitivity and temperance.

Past political conflict, or the immediate affects of it, was a common theme, featuring in half of the films as well as Nicolas J. Winton: Power of Good, a stylish but overly-sentimental and ultimately empty documentary about a British stockbroker who helped take Jewish children out of Nazi-occupied territories. It isn't, however, the subject matter that makes this a festival of nations stuck in the past. It's the fact that half the films were made over five years ago.

The represented countries may be hoping to become "new" to the E.U., but this was hardly a celebration of new European cinema. Is it possible that Hungary has not made a significant movie since 1981's film class staple Mephisto? "These films are not just old, but they represent filmmaking that is being killed off," says Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski ( Last Resort). "Cinema can only thrive when countries have their own identities and the money to back them up. These countries are losing their identities and their cultures. Much of it has to do with the conquest of American culture and the American way of treating cinema as something that must be dealt with by market forces." For countries like Romania, Slovakia and Poland, this season is less a salute to cinematic talent than it is the mourning of lost promise.

Luckily, the more recent films offered a refreshing variety of directorial styles and acting prowess. The Highway Crossing, Estonia's choice, was one of the more bizarre films, opening with a shot of a couple caught kissing in a taxicab's rear-view mirror: the couple are in black-and-white, the sky behind them a luscious deep red. The choppy editing and barely feature length (at 68 minutes, it's 8 minutes wide of being classified a short film) hint at a tight budget; but the twisted humor and graceful camerawork, including shaky point-of-view shots, prove that Estonia's got something to give.

From Lithuania came Elze's Life, which follows Elze from childhood to adulthood in East Prussia at the turn of the century as she deals with a criminal father and a doomed romance. The story is dull, the script dire and the acting leaves a lot to be desired. But director Algimantas Puipa appreciates his surroundings like few Europeans do. Framing his shots like landscape paintings — a fishing fleet against a sunset backdrop, a small boathouse bordered by a shockingly blue sea — he makes the film seem bigger than it is.

The last day of the season was arguably its best, with two very different films both made with great finesse. Gone With the Train, from Slovenia, is a charming comedy about a man who boards a train without knowing where he's going, meets a strange mix of passengers and falls in love with a woman who never says a word. Light, gentle and endearing, the film says as much about a country where a stalled train journey is an excuse for a railway-side football game as it does about director Igor Sterk's love for his subject and his nation.

Turkey's Raindrops is another comedy, but a bittersweet one. Five elderly friends live on a tiny Turkish island swapping insults and opinions. When one falls ill, the others decide to send him to Cuba to meet his long-lost love. To raise the money, they rob a bank. The old folk outshine their younger co-stars (especially Zeki Alasya, Turkey's answer to Danny DeVito, who can get a laugh from the raise of an eyebrow) and would add a touch of class to Europe's acting pool.

Whether or not the "New Europe Film Season" achieved its goal of heightening awareness of E.U. enlargement is hard to measure. While the Mephisto screening sold out, many of the other screenings were less than half-full. As a presentation of what each of these countries could add to what Minister for Europe Peter Hain called "the cultural diversity of Europe," the season failed by filling half the bill with outdated films that no longer speak to what filmmakers are doing today. (Part of the problem could be the choice of judges — wouldn't directors, producers and film historians have compiled a more relevant line-up?) But the season did succeed in proving, perhaps unintentionally, that imagination, storytelling and wit are not the sole property of those with money and the support of a stable government body. It's an important point, and one that would have been better made had it not been overshadowed by the political agenda.

• JUMANA FAROUKY
• A week of cinema from would-be E.U. states couldn't shake off the weight of propaganda