For over a decade, the Hawaii International Film Festival has been the world's premier showcase for significant new films from Asia, and for American films that, in whatever ways, contribute meaningfully to the enrichment of mutual understanding between Asia and America. Of all the exemplary features of the Hawaii Festival – all screenings are free to the public, for example – none has proved worthier than the symposium organized by the East–West Center each fall in conjunction with the event.

This symposium brings together Asian and American (and some European) film historians, critics, and theorists to present and discuss papers that address a theme of common interest even as they are sharing the heady experience of the festival itself – viewing extraordinary films and conversing with filmmakers and each other.

All the papers collected in this volume were first presented at the Hawaii Symposium. Most were written for the 1989 session, whose theme was “Melodrama East and West.” The rest were written for the 1988 session.

Since its inception in 1981, Wimal Dissanayake has been the symposium's coordinator and, I might add, its prime inspiration and guiding force. I think of this book as representing, almost above all, a tribute to the shrewdness, imagination, and good humor with which Dr. Dissanayake has each year put together a diverse cast of characters who always seem to come up with illuminating and provocative papers, and who, with a few deft nudges, always prove ready to plunge into rewarding conversations that lead to long-term friendships in the spirit of the festival's goal of furthering understanding between “East” and “West.”