Introduction

This introductory chapter sets up the book’s interest in examining the developments of Japanese film festivals in the Asia-Pacific. It engages the scholarship on film festivals and cultural diplomacy to develop a new line of inquiry on the proliferation of Japanese Film Festivals (JFFs) and their unique positioning at national and regional levels. The chapter establishes that the current conceptualisation of the roles of film festivals does not satisfactorily explain the function that JFFs play or inform how the interplay between national, regional and local forces shapes the identities of these travelling festivals outside Japan. The JFF example provides an account of how an under-examined festival model interacts with shifting cultural policies and navigates institutional priorities, practices and diverse modes of audience engagement. Situating JFFs as sites of cultural diplomacy, this chapter lays out the interrelating fields and methodological frameworks through which broader issues of festival history, institutions, practices and reception are explored in the subsequent chapters.