Asian World Film Festival

The Asian World Film Festival (AWFF) brings the best of a broad selection of Asian World cinema to Los Angeles in order to draw greater recognition to the region's wealth of filmmakers, strengthening ties between the Asian and Hollywood film industries.

Uniting through cross-cultural collaboration, our festival champions films from over 50 countries across Asia spanning from Turkey to Japan and Russia to India.

All films that participate in the Festival will have a unique chance to be guided through the challenging awards season, showcasing their foreign films to the Academy, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and all Guilds for enhanced exposure, media attention and awards consideration.*

The Asian World Film Festival is organized under Aitysh USA, a 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit organization, and operates according to the organization's guidelines.

*Note. We do not accept submissions. However, all films selected to represent their country to the Academy and Hollywood Foreign Press Association are automatically invited to be exhibited during the Festival.

Over the past two years, 2015-2016, there have been 56 Oscar submissions from the Asian region for Best Foreign Language Film. The Asian World Film Festival has screened 38 of these films, one of which was nominated, 'Theeb' from Jordan and one shortlisted, 'Paradise' from Russia. During the same time period, the Festival has also screened 26 Golden Globe submissions, one of which, 'Theeb', was nominated.