JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film is an annual festival of modern Japanese cinema held at New York City's Japan Society. The festival was first held in 2007, growing out of the Japan Society's popular bi-annual series, New Films from Japan. But where New Films from Japan was a series that showed, on average, ten films over the course of several months, the JAPAN CUTS festival has scheduled an average of 25-30 films, many of them premieres, over two weeks during the month of July. Screenings are held in Japan Society's 260-seat Lila Acheson Wallace Auditorium. History The year 2007 marked not only the launch of JAPAN CUTS, but also the first time Japan Society's film department teamed with the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF). The first festival screened 15 films from July 5–15, 2007, with six co-presentation screenings with NYAFF. The 2007 JAPAN CUTS also featured a special night showcasing Japanese video art courtesy of Frankfurt, Germany's Nippon Connection, as well as a special night of short films and networking lounge for New York and Japan-based filmmakers. Directors Shusuke Kaneko, Miwa Nishikawa, Naoko Ogigami, and Sion Sono appeared at the festival for a discussion about their films. The following year, JAPAN CUTS screened 18 films, nine of them co-presentations with NYAFF. The festival also continued its partnership with Nippon Connection and presented over sixty screenings of short films and video art by independent Japanese filmmakers. Filmmakers Naomi Kawase, Kōji Wakamatsu, Masayuki Kakegawa, and Takako Matsumoto appeared as special guests at the festival for audience Q&A sessions. This was also the first year after-screening parties, something that is now a common occurrence at Japan Society film screenings, were held. The 2009 festival saw the slate of film screenings increase by ten films, with twelve screenings being co-presentation's with NYAFF. However, JAPAN CUTS jettisoned screenings of short films and art videos presented in conjunction with Nippon Connection. Special guests included Sion Sono, Eiji Okuda, Momoko Mieda, Gen Takahashi, and Kazuyoshi Kumakiri. In 2010, JAPAN CUTS scaled back the number of films screened, but increased the number of screenings. Over twenty films screened in thirty screenings, 8 films were co-presented with New York Asian Film Festival. Coming at the end of the decade, the 2010 incarnation of JAPAN CUTS included a small, sub-series of films that had gone unreleased in the United States until their screenings at Japan Society. Special