June, 1996, saw the inauguration of the Fukuoka City Public Library Film Archive, which researches, collects, acquires, preserves and exhibits visual material centered around masterpieces in Asian and Japanese cinema. The Film Archive has enhanced the significance of Fukuoka as a center of information on Asian films. Since 1996, a system has been established where titles exhibited at our festival are acquired into the collection of the Film Archive.

　The festival in 1996 featured a collection of films from the Philippines, one of a few countries in the world where the domestic film industry can stand up to American films in terms of box office success. Centered on powerful, robust and entertaining films, the collection brought great excitement to the audience which included Filipinos residing in Fukuoka. In particular, Marilou Diaz-Abaya, a participant to our 1995 as well as 1996 festival, has come to place her most recent works for exhibition with us. Marilou Diaz-Abaya's positive attitude towards exchanging opportunities with local civic groups has made her one of Fukuoka's best known filmmakers from Asia. Regarding exchange, we found Ahn Sung-Kee, the famous Korean actor, surrounded by a crowd asking for his autograph after the screening of Festival.
The introduction of Bombay, an entertaining film full of song and dance dealing with a social issue, can be regarded as the starting point in the popular trend of mainstream Indian cinema in Japan which we expect to see more of. The festival had the opportunity to introduce Bag of Rice, a collaboration effort between a Japanese and Iranian company, realized as a result of the Iranian film director's participation in our festival the year before. Additionally, two newcomers, Prasanna Vithanage of Sri Lanka and U-Wei Bin Hajisaari of Malaysia were selected by NHK for collaborative projects.
After the 1996 festival, Korean film director, Park Chul-Soo, came to Fukuoka to direct an international public relations video for the City of Fukuoka.

　Starting in 1996, the festival began passing out three editions of its Festival News, a bulletin report of comments made by festival participants to the audience, during the course of its festivity.