Festival Data:

• Established: 1991
• Genre: General
• Attendance: 16773
• Total Number of Films Screened: 47

• Competitive
• Catalog
• Has Panels
• Has Seminars

Festival Website:

Festival Description:

Being geographically located closest to the Asiatic mainland with a long history of having served Japan as its gateway of exchange to the continent, the City of Fukuoka attaches great importance to her Asian ties as she positions herself in the image of an "energetic urban center of Asia". Fukuoka began putting on "Asian Month" in 1990, as a means to further deepen the circle of exchanges developed through the "Asian-Pacific Exposition" held in 1989 to commemorate her centennial. Every September, "Asian Month" holds over 50 events that relate to the culture, learning and arts of Asia. Inaugurated in 1991, the "Focus on Asia-Fukuoka International Film Festival" is one of the major events of "Asian Month."

In the course of exhibiting its films, the Festival also invites film directors, actors and actresses as guests to promote exchanges through discussions and symposiums.

Kodak VISION Award (Fukuoka Audience Award) will be chosen by a voting audience. 17 films officially invited to the Focus on Asia - Fukuoka International Film Festival are eligible to compete for the award. The 1st screening of all competing films will exhibit to a voting audience.

1996 marked the inauguration of the new Fukuoka City Public Library. The Library maintains a film archive that conducts research on films, centered on Asian and Japanese masterpieces. Such works are collected, preserved and exhibited in the form of a film library. As of October 2004, this film archive has purchased the archival rights to 278 of the 386 films exhibited at the Festival, and preserves these prints as valuable Asian cultural heritage of a visual nature.