On opening night, a seat at The Culver Theater costs $200 and includes a reception with food and an open bar. Later in the week, tickets in the same building, for films competing in the same Oscar category, start at $15.
The 12th Asian World Film Festival runs today, Thursday, November 12, through Thursday, November 19, at The Culver Theater, 9500 Culver Blvd. For that week, a downtown Culver City theater shows a large share of the films competing for Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards, mostly at ordinary ticket prices and often with filmmakers there to answer questions.
The Race Runs Through 9500 Culver Blvd.
Deadline reported on October 29 that this year's festival will show 27 official International Oscar submissions. Sixteen of them are in the main competition. The same report gives the 2025 track record. Eight films shown at AWFF last year made the Oscars shortlist, and two of those went on to be nominated.
These films are the official entries their countries chose to send to the Academy. The 2026 program covers features from more than 33 nations and autonomous regions across Asia. It includes eight North American premieres, four U.S. premieres and one world premiere.
The festival was founded in 2015 by Kyrgyz director-producer Sadyk Sher-Niyaz. Georges N. Chamchoum leads it as Executive Director. Chamchoum described this year's slate to Deadline this way:
"Asian cinema continues to redefine what filmmaking can achieve, transcending borders and illuminating the ideas, emotions and shared humanity of our time."
Three Anchor Screenings, Three Price Points
The festival's shape is easiest to see through its three marquee slots, since each one works differently.
Opening night, tonight. Kassandra, directed by Bekzat Pirmatov, is Kyrgyzstan's Oscar submission. Deadline describes it as a blend of mysticism and psychological horror about a grieving woman who goes to a healer after an unseen presence attacks her. The 7:30 PM screening is a North American premiere. The opening-night ticket page lists tickets from $200 for limited VIP seats, and the price includes the post-screening reception.
Centerpiece, Friday afternoon. No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman, directed by Halkawt Mustafa, is Iraq's submission. It screens Friday, November 13, at 4:30 PM, with tickets from $15 and a Q&A afterward. It runs 110 minutes. Mustafa is one of 13 filmmakers from across the lineup who will attend the festival and take part in audience Q&As. Its 4:30 PM start is early enough to finish before dinner downtown.
Closing film, Wednesday, November 18. The Road Not Taken, from filmmaker Peter Ho-sun Chan, is the festival's designated closing film and screens Wednesday, November 18, at 7:00 PM. It's billed as a U.S. premiere. The closing film's ticket page lists tickets from $15.
So the premium price belongs to one night and one reception. The centerpiece, the closing film and competition titles such as Abel all start at $15.
Where the Filmmakers Will Be in the Room
At a festival built around Oscar submissions, a Q&A is a chance to hear a director explain a film that their country's selection committee picked as its best of the year. The festival's ticket storefront marks these screenings with Q&As, day by day:
| Day | Screenings listed with a Q&A |
|---|---|
| Friday, Nov. 13 | No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman; Beyond the Silk Road + Kurak |
| Saturday, Nov. 14 | White Road; Gondhal; Abel |
| Sunday, Nov. 15 | Shorts program with Mopim, So Far Away, So Close, House of Gia and Media Biased |
| Monday, Nov. 16 | The Sandbox |
| Tuesday, Nov. 17 | No Good in Sight: A Story; Four Seasons in Java; Hanging by a Wire |
| Wednesday, Nov. 18 | Edward Said: Between Worlds; shorts program with Break Shot, Deadlock, Lumi Story and Tanabata-Yume Tanzaku |
Saturday ties Tuesday for the most Q&A screenings. Abel, from director Elzat Eskendir, is Kazakhstan's Oscar submission and plays that evening as a U.S. premiere in competition. Use the Abel ticket page for the exact start time. The ticketing site notes that screening times can change without notice.
The Tuesday and Wednesday lineups make a good case for going on a weeknight. Those two evenings together have more Q&A screenings than Sunday and Monday combined.
The Sixteen Films the Jury Will Weigh
The main competition is where the Oscar overlap is greatest. U.S. producer Arthur Sarkissian is president of this year's jury. The other members are documentary filmmaker Mina Chow, media executive Zaur Darabzada and actress-producer Jasmine Suraya Chin. Deadline's lineup report lists the competition films as follows:
- Roid, Mejbaur Rahman Sumon, Bangladesh
- Once Upon A Time In The Middle East, Wen Muye, China
- Gondhal, Santosh Davakhar, India
- No Paradise If You Are Killed By A Woman, Halkawt Mustafa, Iraq, Centerpiece
- Tell Me Everything, Moshe Rosenthal, Israel
- Abel, Elzat Eskendir, Kazakhstan, U.S. Premiere
- The Fox King, Ming Jin Woo, Malaysia
- Independence: Keeper Of The Prophecy, Tamir Bat-Ulzii, Mongolia
- Hanging By A Wire, Mohammed Ali Naqvi, Pakistan
- Citizen Osama, Ahmed Hassouna, Palestine
- Filipiñana, Rafael Manuel, Philippines
- Riverstone, Lalith Rathnayake, Sri Lanka, North American Premiere
- Other Side Of The Sun, Tawfik Sabouni, Syria, North American Premiere
- A Foggy Tale, Yu-Hsun Chen, Taiwan
- Like A Limbless Tree, Tunç Davut, Turkey, North American Premiere
- Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret Of The First Emperor, Nguyễn Phan Quang Bình, Vietnam
Two practical details from the 2026 lineup page can help with planning. Citizen Osama, Palestine's submission, runs 71 minutes, which fits easily into a weeknight. A Foggy Tale, Taiwan's submission, runs 134 minutes. Besides the Official Selection, the festival also programs an Asian Vision Competition, a Short Film Program and Special Screenings, including a Focus on Japan and a Focus on ASEAN.
Getting In and Parked Downtown
The theater sits in the middle of downtown Culver City, so most of the logistics come down to parking. The Culver Theater's parking page says the theater validates two hours of parking at three City lots, and the City adds one free hour.
- 9099 Washington Blvd. This is the only one of the three with electric vehicle charging, with three stations. Its listed Sunday hours are 8:00 AM to 1:00 AM.
- 3846 Cardiff Ave.
- 3844 Watseka Ave.
According to the theater, the lots are open from 8:00 AM to 2:00 AM Monday through Thursday, until 3:00 AM on Fridays and Saturdays, and until 1:00 AM on Sundays. Past the free and validated time, the City's downtown parking rates are $1 for each additional 30 minutes, capped at $12 a day.
Individual tickets are sold through the festival's Vivenu storefront, which the official festival site links to from each film.
One More Free Evening on Culver Boulevard
The Friday centerpiece screening overlaps with another free evening farther west on the same boulevard. Raga Sangeet Creative presents NOOR: Illuminating Oneness Through Music, a free concert on Friday, November 13, from 6 to 9 PM at the Wende Museum's Community Center, 10808 Culver Boulevard. A reception starts at 6 and the performance at 7, according to the City's event listing. The 110-minute centerpiece starts at 4:30 PM at 9500 Culver Blvd., so it's possible to see the film and catch the Wende performance the same evening.
Through Thursday, November 19, 27 official International Oscar submissions are playing downtown, most from $15 a seat, with two hours of validated parking at three nearby City lots. The full schedule is on the Asian World Film Festival site.
At The Grady Group, we follow the details of Westside life closely, because they shape what it's like to live near Culver Boulevard. If a week of walking to premieres has you thinking about living closer to downtown Culver City, we'd be glad to talk it through privately, including off-market options where they fit what you're looking for.
