Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

Five Flavours is an annual showcase of the cinema of East, Southeast and South Asia. Since 2007, it continues to premiere brand new, carefully curated films from countries in the region, as well as classic works from Asian archives, retrospectives of selected filmmakers and reviews of national cinematographies.

Festival

Five Flavours Asian Film Festival is one of the most important film events in Poland dedicated to Asian cinema and cultures, and the leading festival of Asian cinema in Central and Eastern Europe. Since 2007, it has served as a cinematic window onto this remarkably diverse region of the world, offering Polish audiences access to films and cultural phenomena that rarely reach regular theatrical distribution. The festival has been organized since its inception by the Arteria Art Foundation.

Five Flavours creates a space for presenting contemporary Asian cinema in all its diversity – from independent auteur films and ambitious genre cinema to spectacular blockbuster productions. The festival programme aims to capture the vast landscape of contemporary Asian filmmaking and to highlight some of the most compelling artistic and cultural achievements across the region. Each edition is shaped by a carefully developed curatorial concept prepared by a team of programmers, critics and experts who invite audiences on an exploratory journey through the many cinematic traditions of Asia.

Programme

Each year, the festival presents around 45 films from nearly 15 Asian countries, offering audiences a wide spectrum of contemporary filmmaking from across the region. The event attracts more than 15,000 viewers in Warsaw cinemas, while its extensive online edition reaches audiences throughout Poland, gathering approximately 25,000 viewers on the festival’s streaming platform. In total, Five Flavours welcomes over 40,000 viewers annually, making it one of the most significant events dedicated to Asian cinema in this part of Europe. 

The structure of the festival programme is built around thematic sections and retrospectives devoted to filmmakers and movements significant to contemporary cinema of the region. At the heart of the programme is the New Asian Cinema Competition, which presents films by emerging directors distinguished by their fresh and bold perspectives on contemporary realities. The competition winner is selected by an international People’s Jury, composed of aspiring film critics, cinephiles, and future film curators and scholars. The programme is further complemented by curated sections and auteur retrospectives that highlight both important artistic developments and key social, historical, and cultural contexts shaping the countries of Asia.

The visual identity of Five Flavours is based on the East Asian lunar calendar and zodiac signs. The year 2026 marks the Year of the Fire Horse.

Mission

Education is a central element of the festival’s mission. In addition to film screenings, the programme includes a wide range of accompanying events such as introductions, filmmaker Q&As, debates and panel discussions, which deepen the audience’s engagement with the films and with the social and cultural transformations reflected in contemporary Asian cinema. The festival provides a safe space for open dialogue about film art, popular culture, history, politics and social experiences that shape the realities portrayed on screen.

From its very beginning, Five Flavours has developed in close dialogue with its audience. As an event that is co-created by its viewers, the festival remains open to their curiosity, sensitivity and desire to explore new cultural perspectives. Screenings in Warsaw cinemas are complemented by an extensive online edition, allowing the festival to reach audiences across Poland. Over the years, the event has built a dedicated community of viewers who return annually to discover new films and new ways of looking at the world.

An important element of the festival’s identity is also its historical connection with the Vietnamese diaspora in Warsaw. The first edition of the event began as a showcase of Vietnamese cinema and gradually evolved into an international festival presenting a broad spectrum of contemporary Asian filmmaking. To this day, one of the festival’s key aims is to foster intercultural dialogue and to highlight the histories and experiences of Asian communities living in Poland.

Distribution and VOD

In 2017, Five Flavours expanded its activities to include film distribution. One of the festival’s key distribution initiatives is the presentation of a cycle of films by Wong Kar Wai, one of the great masters of world cinema. These titles are screened in newly restored versions, meticulously refurbished under the director’s own supervision.

In 2020, we introduced a new model for presenting Asian cinema through a dedicated VOD platform, developed specifically for the festival and fully integrated with its website. The platform allows us to reach a broad and diverse audience across Poland. It hosts the festival’s online edition each year, while also offering selected titles throughout the year, including films by Wong Kar Wai.

Main Partners

Five Flavours Asian Film Festival is made possible thanks to the support of public and international partners, including the City of Warsaw, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, the Polish Film Institute, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Berlin, Create Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Film Development Fund, the Korean Cultural Center, and the Japan Foundation. Over the years, the festival has also collaborated with institutions such as the Asian Film Awards Academy, KOFA – Korean Film Archive, the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, and the Taipei Representative Office.

Sections

Major thematic sections and retrospectives presented in recent editions:

• Retrospective: Ann Hui (11th edition)

• Focus: Bhutan (11th edition)

• Retrospective: Fruit Chan (13th edition)

• Japan Out of Focus (13th edition)

• Parasites (14th edition)

• Retrospective: Wong Kar Wai (15th edition)

• Taiwanese Queer Cinema (15th edition)

• Retrospective: Edward Yang (16th edition)

• Hong Kong Cinema in Motion(16th edition)

• Retrospective: King Hu (17th edition)

• Focus: India (17th edition)

• Retrospective: Stanley Kwan (18th edition)

• Focus: Environment (18th edition)

• Japan 80s (19th edition)

• K-Youth (19th edition)

• Focus: Migration (19th edition)

Festival archive

Notable festival guests

Over the years, we have had many distinguished filmmakers present at the festival:

• Roger Lee

• Fruit Chan

• Pema Tseden

• Midi Z

• Naoko Ogigami

• Miwa Nishikawa

• Yang Chao

• Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit

• Joko Anwar

• Dechen Roder

• Mouly Surya

• Heiward Mak

• Tetsuya Tomita

• Ho Yuhang

• Adam Wong

• Akiko Ohku

• Hiroshi Ishikawa

People’s Jury

The People’s Jury project is a unique educational initiative in which the festival’s competition films are evaluated not by industry professionals, but by passionate and dedicated film lovers. Each year, a group of jurors selected through an open call watches all the films in the New Asian Cinema section – a key part of the festival programme showcasing works distinguished by their formal originality and thematic boldness, usually coming from the new voices of Asian Cinemas.

In addition to viewing and discussing the competition titles, members of the jury take part in workshops devoted to festival programming and organizational skills of festival production, as well as in collective deliberations that lead to the selection of the film awarded the festival’s Grand Prix. Since 2021, the People’s Jury has had an international character, bringing together participants from different countries and backgrounds.

Jagoda Murczyńska Asian Cinema Critics’ Competition

The Jagoda Murczyńska Asian Cinema Critics’ Competition is aimed at aspiring film critics and writers who engage with Asian cinema. The initiative honours the memory of our late colleague, mentor and friend, who organised the festival for many years. It is addressed to authors sensitive to the cultural nuances of the region and interested in exploring less obvious narratives and new interpretative perspectives within film. The competition was created to support the development of emerging critical voices and to provide a space for deeper reflection on contemporary Asian cinema. The Grand Prize is a trip to a prestigious film festival in Asia, while the Second Prize allows a participant to go to a Asian film festival in Europe.

Organizer - Arteria Art Foundation

Arteria Art Foundation was established in 2004 by four actors to produce theatre performances and socially engaged artistic projects. From 2005 onwards, it formulated and developed a mission centered on using art as a tool for intercultural dialogue. It organized a number of events devoted to the Vietnamese community living in Warsaw, then the largest foreign community in the Polish capital. Projects such as Warsawers, Viet Nam Gra, Trip to Asia (2005-2006), as well as the first editions of the film festival Cinema in Five Flavours, which employed creative methods of socio-cultural animation, came to be recognized as groundbreaking examples of work with foreign communities and national and ethnic minorities.

In the following years, the foundation continued to develop Five Flavours, recognizing the great potential of film as a means of fostering tolerance and openness, and of raising awareness of other cultures and the presence of their representatives in Poland. At the same time, it strengthened its broader mission of promoting intercultural dialogue and inspiring curiosity about the wider world.

Arteria Art Foundation is a non-profit non-governmental organization, which means it does not generate profit and allocates all funds it raises to the pursuit of its statutory objectives.

If you have any additional questions regarding the festival, please reach out to us via email: info@piecsmakow.pl.