CinemAsia kicks off crowdfunding effort to keep film festival alive

The CinemAsia Film Festival has been sharing stories and knowledge about Asian culture through cinematography since 2003. This year's edition of the film festival was canceled due to Covid-19. Additionally, the festival lost structural funding putting the event in jeopardy.

CinemAsia has launched a fundraiser to be able to continue to spread their message. As the first and only Asian film festival in the Netherlands, CinemAsia aims to give an insight into the lives of people in the Asian community.

Filmmaker Doris Yeung said to NL Times that she founded the festival due to the lack of Asian representation in the Netherlands. “The idea is that through the visual image in media, TV and films that we share awareness of the whole community which was really lacking, especially for Asians", Yeung said.

Each year, CinemAsia presented experiences from Asian people told through the lenses of producers and showed them in cinemas not only at the main festival in Amsterdam but also in different theaters across the Netherlands "to create and exhibit Asian stories.”

The festival recently lost four years of structural funding leaving a large gap in their income. To able to launch the festival next year, CinemAsia relies on the help of donors who support their mission to increase Asian visibility in the Netherlands. The focus, however, not only lies on the financial aspect but also on the greater message of bringing the community together, Yeung stated.

If the festival is not able to bridge their gap in funding by this autumn, the CinemAsia Film Festival will not be able to go through in 2022. The festival has already received over 3,600 euros in donations towards its target of 100 thousand euros.