The festival in 1995 was held for 11 days due to a national holiday, which served as one of the reasons for its record-breaking attendance, drawing a total of 19,278 to the theaters including those who came to see the sponsored events. A Last Note, a posthumous work of the late Japanese actress, Nobuko Otowa, drew big crowds to the theater. Because the theater could not accommodate everyone who came to see the film, an unprecedented additional screening of the motion picture was held.

　The festival in 1995 featured Iranian films that began attracting worldwide attention from the late 1980's. Apart from Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf who had already been recognized, many other individuals representing the Iranian film industry were introduced. The seven films exhibited in Fukuoka were then placed on loan to the Iranian Film Festival which was held in 1996 in Tokyo.
Film director Lee Ang brought his first feature film, Pushing Hands, to our film festival in 1995. The exhibition of this film, as part of a "father's trilogy", following The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman which were respectively shown in Fukuoka in 1993 and 1994, became the talk of the town. Tony Leung, the star from Hong Kong, was to visit Fukuoka to promote his film, He Ain't Heavy, He's My Father. However, his winning the Gold Lion Award at the Venice International Film Festival held right before our festival for his starring role in Cyclo, forced him to change his schedule. Being forced to abruptly cancel his trip to Fukuoka, Tony Leung, instead, sent a taped message to his fans who were looking forward to seeing the actor at the festival.

　Our festival news letter, "Focus on Asia", made its first appearance in March, 1995. The news letter, has since been issued three times a year. The fact that participants to our festival such as Adoor Gopalakrishnan from India, Cherd Songsri from Thailand, Dang Nhat Minh from Vietnam and N.Uranchimeg from Mongolia realized their collaborative film projects at NHK sponsored Asian Film Festival is just one example of the fruitful results of the Focus on Asia Fukuoka International Film Festival.