Japanese Film Festivals and Cultural Diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific

In expanding our understanding of cultural diplomacy film festivals and their role in using cinema to promote national images, this thesis examines the historical and contemporary development of Japanese film festivals (JFFs) in the Asia-Pacific between the years 1990 to 2018. This thesis adopts qualitative and ethnographic research methods to explore the JFF developments in Thailand, Australia and Malaysia. These three festivals were developed during different phases of Japan’s cultural diplomacy efforts and invite us to consider new ways of thinking about the dynamics of film festival histories, practices and reception in a geopolitical frame beyond the dominant Euro-American and East Asian approaches in the field of film festival studies.