VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS, the nation’s premier Asian Pacific American media arts center, established the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film & Video Festival in 1983 as a vehicle to promote Asian and Asian Pacific American cinema. The Festival has grown from its humble beginnings as a weekend-long series into a major annual showcase presenting the best of Asian Pacific American and Asian international media in the United States. Along the way the Festival has taken up residence in various local venues before settling into its signature venues, the Directors Guild of America and the Aratani/Japan America Theatre; and has undergone a variety of name changes reflecting the ever-expanding Asian Pacific and general movie-going communities of the Greater Los Angeles and Southern California regions. Since 2008, the Festival has been known as its permanent iteration, The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.