Asian World Film Festival 2026 Guide: Culver City

The Asian World Film Festival is coming back to Culver City for its 12th edition, November 12 through 19, 2026. The festival has now posted its 2026 film lineup and opened ticket sales. It opens with Kassandra, Kyrgyzstan’s Oscar submission, and closes with the U.S. premiere of Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s The Road Not Taken. The venue and this year’s honorees have not been announced yet.

AWFF is produced by Aitysh USA, a nonprofit, and it hands out the Snow Leopard awards. Last year’s edition gave them to names like Lee Byung-hun and Lucy Liu. Here is what is confirmed, plus what last year looked like so you know what to expect.

The quick version

When	Thursday, November 12, through Thursday, November 19, 2026
Where	Culver City. The 2026 venue has not been named. Last year’s festival was at The Culver Theater.
Edition	12th
Presented by	Aitysh USA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
Opening film	Kassandra, directed by Bekzat Pirmatov (Kyrgyzstan)
Closing film	The Road Not Taken, directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan (China), U.S. premiere
Tickets	On sale through the festival’s lineup and tickets page. Prices not listed on the lineup page.
Official site	asianworldfilmfest.org

The 2026 lineup

The lineup leans hard on this awards season. Most of the competition films are their countries’ submissions for Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards. A few to know:

Opening film: Kassandra, Bekzat Pirmatov, Kyrgyzstan, 90 minutes
Centerpiece: No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman, Halkawt Mustafa, Iraq, 110 minutes, with a Q&A
Closing film: The Road Not Taken, Peter Ho-Sun Chan, China, 135 minutes, U.S. premiere
In competition: Oscar submissions from Kazakhstan (Abel), Taiwan (A Foggy Tale), Palestine (Citizen Osama), the Philippines (Filipiñana), Mongolia, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Malaysia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and India
Special screenings: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden (Japan, 196 minutes), Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love (South Korea), Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur and Kamila Andini’s Four Seasons in Java (Indonesia)
Also on the program: an Asian Vision competition and a short film program

Bring snacks for the Hamaguchi. At 196 minutes, it is the longest film on the list.

What last year looked like

The 11th edition ran November 11 through 20, 2025, at The Culver Theater, according to TheWrap. These are last year’s details, not this year’s, but they give a sense of the festival’s scale.

Snow Leopard Outstanding Cinematic Achievement Awards: Lee Byung-hun and Lucy Liu
Snow Leopard Rising Star Award: Nina Ye
Snow Leopard Lifetime Achievement Award: Daniel Lee
Bruce Lee Award: Michael Jai White
Closing film: The Voice of Hind Rajab, directed by Kaouther Ben Hania
Snow Leopard Special Jury Award: Palestine 36

Competition winners last year also included A Sad and Beautiful World and Left-Handed Girl, per the festival’s site.

The calendar math

Eight days, Thursday to Thursday, with one weekend in the middle: Saturday, November 14, and Sunday, November 15. If you can only make a weekend, that is it. Heads up for San Diego film fans: the San Diego Asian Film Festival closes that same Saturday night, so a two-festival weekend is possible if you like driving the 5.

Still to come

The venue, this year’s honorees and ticket prices have not been posted on the festival’s lineup page. The 824 Journal will update this guide when the festival releases them.