Asian World Film Festival Sets New Date for Sixth Edition

The Sixth Annual Asian World Film Festival has been rescheduled to start March 10, 2021 with the closing night gala taking place March 15, in order to tie in with THE ACADEMY AWARDS set for April 25. Most of the AWFF films are Asian Oscar ® or Golden Globe ® submissions. The Seventh Annual AWFF will return to its normal November date (11.3-11, 2021). Both editions of the festival will be held in Culver City, as usual.

"We are pleased to lock in our new dates in March to support world-class Asian films in the awards season with full attention to all safety and health requirements as needed. Our panels and screenings leading up to the festival will build a community eager for cinema from this part of the world," said Georges N. Chamchoum, executive director and co-founder.

An upcoming AWFF panel, entitled "Trailblazers," features Asian-American actors Lisa Lu, Nancy Kwan, France Nuyen, Kieu Chinh and Irene Tsu, reminiscing on their 60 to 70 years working in Hollywood. Free tickets for the virtual panel on October 17 at 5 PM PST can be found here.

The AWFF is meanwhile involved in a number of screenings and events. A program of online screenings will feature sneak screenings of potential Oscar and Golden Globe submissions for Best International Feature Film and Best Motion Picture, Foreign
Language, respectively.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, working in tandem with the AWFF, is having special online screenings of the best Asian foreign language films followed by Q&As with the filmmakers. They include Hive from Turkey 2020, directed by Eylem Kaftan, Better Days from China 2019 directed by Derek Tsang and Wet Season from Singapore 2019 directed by Anthony Chen as well as Redha from Malaysia, directed by Tunku Mona Riza, and 3000 Nights from Palestine, directed by Mai Masri which are part of the Best of the Fest program. More screenings are to be announced. A number of top Asian films have already been screened with Q&As.

Also planned is a talk by Arthur Dong about his coffee table book Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films; a Master Class by Jeremy Kagan, the award-winning director, screenwriter and producer; and a new Tribute Program honoring greats within the Asian film industry. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association will also lead a panel exploring their role, objectives and philanthropic activities.

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