Despite being held every year during the typhoon season, our festival was fortunate in not having received a direct hit from one of these storms. In 1997, however, a typhoon did approach the island of Kyushu during the festival and public transportation was halted as a result. Shops closed temporally and the festival office was forced to give up a part of its planned screenings, which led to a drop in attendance from the previous year, to 14,117. Attendance may have dropped, but to the festival came the largest number of participants - a total of 64 individuals, who exchanged lively discussions with the audience. This was due to many guests from the Philippines, the country featured in our 1995 festival, who came their own expense. Another international film festival was launched in 1997 - in Pusan, Korea, only a 40 minute flight from Fukuoka. As the festival was held at the same time as our festival, many guests moved to Pusan after Fukuoka.

　Including masterpieces by the great filmmaker, Lee Hsing, our Taiwan Films Collection presented 7 films seeing their premier in Japan. Some of these films were made prior to TaiwanUfs New Wave Cinema coming to the forefront. At the Symposium, Lee Hsing, as well as other individuals representing Taiwan's film industry such as Wan Jen and Wang Tong, gave summaries on the history of Taiwanese films. The Symposium, as a result, turned out to be a very fruitful event. One of the festival participants was film director Chang Tso-Chi, winner of many awards including the Grand Prix Prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 1999. Set in Japan, the Hong Kong film, Hiroshima 28, saw its premier in Japan more than 20 years after it was made. The novel, melodramatic film, focusing on victims of the atomic bomb, drew the wide attention of the audience.

　The Korean film, A Hot Roof, was an excellent comedy created by a newcomer to the film industry. Starting with this film, our festival began exhibiting more of Korea's new generation films.
Children of the Heaven(Iran) and The Long Journey(Vietnam), being favorably received in Fukuoka, caught the eye of film distributors, which eventually led to their release in Japan.

　Starting in 1997, the Fukuoka City Public Library began exhibiting masterpieces in Japanese cinema during our festival, with English subtitles made especially for our festival guests.

　Having had four of his films exhibited at our festival, Im Kwon-Taek, a prominent Korean film director, received the 1997 Arts and Culture Prize of the 8th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize.