The countdown to the programme announcement begins! First previews of the 20th edition of the Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

This anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on what Five Flavours has been over the past two decades – and where we want to take the festival in the years to come. This year’s programme will therefore bring together what matters most to us: discovering new cinematic voices, exploring the changes shaping contemporary Asia, and returning to the themes and film cultures that have shaped the festival’s identity from the very beginning.

Thematic sections

An important return to our roots will be Vietnam – for the history of Five Flavours began with a showcase of Vietnamese cinema. During the 20th edition of the festival, we will take a closer look at the country’s cinema and explore the direction it is taking today. This section will offer a panorama of new films – stylistically diverse, bold and increasingly prominent on the international scene. We are returning to where we began, only to discover that Vietnamese cinema is now in a very different place.

The programme will once again feature director retrospectives. We are preparing two major retrospectives dedicated to masters whose work demonstrates just how far the boundaries of genre cinema can be pushed. These are filmmakers who have played an important role in the history of Five Flavours, as well as in Asian cinema more broadly, and we will be revealing their names very soon.

Another major highlight of the programme will be a section dedicated to spirituality – exploring how the search for what lies beyond the visible can permeate cinema not only through its subject matter, but also through its form. We’ll be looking at films in which transcendence is found in everyday gestures, ways of seeing, rhythm, imagery and atmosphere – ranging from intimate stories about the search for spiritual meaning to the most unexpected corners of genre cinema.

Newcomers and masters

As we do every year, we’re keeping our finger on the pulse of contemporary cinema. In the New Asian Cinema competition, we’ll see the most exciting new voices from ten countries. The winning film will be selected by the international People’s Jury, and the Grand Prix, worth 25,000 zł and funded by the Polish Film Institute, will go to the film that resonates most strongly with the jury. Applications to join the People’s Jury are still open – we are accepting applications until 31 August.

Apply to the People’s Jury

Asian Cinerama will welcome back filmmakers well known to our audience, returning to Five Flavours with long-awaited new films. It will offer a panorama of contemporary Asian cinema in all its diversity: from big-budget productions and major hits to bold genre films and arthouse gems that have triumphed at Asia’s most important festivals.

Special screenings

This anniversary is also an opportunity to take a closer look at Asian filmmakers working in Poland. As part of the ‘Subverted Gazes’ project, we will meet graduates of the Łódź Film School, whose work emerges at the intersection of different cultures, aesthetics and experiences. The screenings will be accompanied by discussions on migration, identity and how living between different cultural and social systems shapes the language of cinema.

In the Special Screenings, we’ll also take a look at Burma. Short documentaries produced in collaboration with the DVB Peacock Festival will give us the chance to hear the voices of filmmakers working within a country where the political and economic situation means that independent filmmaking is now carried out in near-guerrilla conditions. The screenings will be followed by a discussion with the Burmese filmmakers.

A return to the Five Flavours classics

And finally – the Anniversary Section, for which we selected the programme together with our audience. Ten titles will return to Five Flavours, taking us on a journey through two decades of the festival. The screenings will feature films that we discovered together, films that moved us deeply and have stayed with us ever since, becoming part of the festival’s collective memory. The section also pays tribute to the online audience that has joined us in recent years – many of these films will be available on VOD for the very first time!

Save the date!

Festival passes go on sale on 3 September – alongside the first titles in the programme.

The 20th edition of the Five Flavours Asian Film Festival will take place from 10 to 17 November across three Warsaw venues: Kino Muranów, Kinoteka and Kinomuzeum, while the online festival will run until 6 December.