History

The iFilm Connections project roots go back to 1995, when Jeannette Paulson Hereniko, Founding Director of the Hawaii International Film Festival and President of NETPAC/USA (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema), received a $15,000 grant from the John and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to start an Asian film database with information supplied by NETPAC members in 32 Asian countries. In 1997, she was invited to the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California (USC) and given support to build the East Asian section of the website project further. It was during this time, between 1996 and 2005, that the site flourished thanks to grants from the Japan Foundation, support from the Annenberg Center at USC, and information provided by outstanding Asian film critics and scholars, notably from Dr. Shaoyi Sun, China film scholar from the University of Singapore and USC. By the end of 2005, the site, now named Asian Film Connections, had won several awards and was consistently visited by over 7,500 people a day. However, in 2005, the Center's new direction excluded support for the Asian Film Connections website project.

In order to ensure continuation and to protect the site from institutional changes or government censorship, it was decided to develop the website as a self-supporting project through subscriptions, principally through universities and libraries. Ownership continues to resides with Jeannette Paulson Hereniko and content continues be developed by an outstanding team of film scholars, including Dr. Shaoyi Sun.

We are committed to expanding the range of cultural coverage on the site. To demonstrate our determination to do this, we start the site with a salute to Vietnam cinema. Recognizing the emergence of a significant indigenous cinema from the Pacific Islands, one of the major revisions of the subscription site is the inclusion of Pacific Island film culture. Scholar and filmmaker, Vilsoni Hereniko will be in charge of developing this important new section.

New technologies permit the new site to offer an Asia Pacific Film Festival online that will allow users a rare opportunity to view independent Asian and Pacific feature films whose content sheds light on one of the most important issues of this century: the impact of globalization on the diverse cultures of Asia and the Pacific. The subject of representation will be explored in a series of essays that complement the online Asia Pacific Film Festival.

Other unique features of the site that have been added include a database search engine, blogs, and podcasts.

All materials will continue to originate from outstanding Asian and Pacific film scholars, critics, programmers, and filmmakers.

To reflect a change in scope and direction, the site's name has changed to iFilm Connections: Asia & Pacific. It is accessible by going to ifilmconnections.org, asianfilms.org, pacificfilms.org, and/or asianpacificfilms.org.