The festival was initiated by Nobuo Murata with the support of film director Jerzy Skolimowski and the Polish Institute in Tokyo. Nobuo Murata is a connoisseur of Polish cinema, whose company Mermaid Films not only organises this annual feast for the Japanese film lovers, but also distributes Polish films in Japan.
In 2017, the Polish Film Festival in Japan marked its 6th anniversary. The event featured carefully selected Polish films, including the masterpieces of Andrzej Wajda and Jerzy Kawalerowicz, the directors who established the Polish Film School in the history of film. It also introduced the works of young directors, such as The Lure directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska awarded at the Sundance Film Festival.
The festival also allowed the Japanese audiences to learn more about Polish artists from fields other than cinema. The programme of the event included a section dedicated to the science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem, who is very popular in Japan. The section featured, among others, a biographical documentary about Lem titled Autor Solaris (editor’s translation: The Author of Solaris) directed by Borys Lankosz and co-produced by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Another section of the festival presented two films about painter Zdzisław Beksiński and his son Tomasz, music critic and translator: Jan Paweł Matuszyński’s debut feature The Last Family, which received several awards at the 2016 Gdynia Film Festival, and the documentary Beksińscy: Album wideofoniczny (The Beksiński Family: A Videphonic Album) directed by Marcin Borchardt.
The 6th Poland Film Festival was supported by the Polish Film Institute, Polish Institute in Tokyo, Skopia Film and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.