CinemAsia Film Festival

The CinemAsia Film Festival, also known as simply CinemAsia, is among Europe’s key film festivals dedicated to Asian cinema. It was founded in 2004 by film director Doris Yeoung. The festival is held every spring in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Doris Yeung is a San Francisco-born, Hong Kong-raised film director. In 2002, she moved to Amsterdam and immediately started looking for ways to contribute to Asian culture in the Netherlands. She decided to create an event that would make up for the lack of Asian representation through the visual medium. That’s how the CinemAsia Film Festival was born.

The inaugural festival was held in March 2004 at Amsterdam’s Rialto Cinema. It screened 29 films from 12 countries over 5 days, focusing on Asian diaspora and LGBT cinema. The festival was an instant success and gained critical acclaim for the way it introduced new audiences to Asian cinema, helping to positively reshape the Dutch collective consciousness about Asia and its culture.

Originally, CinemAsia was held every other year. Having outgrown it its biannual programming, it became an annual festival in 2012. Its program has expanded considerably and now includes both commercial blockbusters and independent, arthouse and socially conscious films. Screenings and other events take place in several venues across Amsterdam.

CinemAsia’s programming includes a film competition and special screenings. The competition features films by established and up-and-coming filmmakers who have an authentic voice and a unique artistic vision, tackle relevant themes, and challenge the conventions of the medium. The Official Selection contains critically acclaimed and/or commercially successful feature films, documentaries and shorts made by Asian filmmakers both in and outside Asia.

The best film in the competition receives the Jury Award. The Audience Award is given to the film with the highest viewers rating. The festival also presents the Achievement Award to an individual who has made an important contribution to Asian cinema.

Alongside the main festival, CinemAsia hosts year-round screenings in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other Dutch cities, special events, and the CinemAsia FilmLAB program. CinemAsia FilmLAB is a program for Dutch-Asian filmmakers aimed to stimulate a wider range of Asian representation on Dutch screens.