NETPAC is a worldwide organization founded in 1990 by Aruna Vasudev as the result of a conference organized in New Delhi by Cinemaya – The Asian Film Quarterly, at the request of UNESCO. It was set up with the aim to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of Asian films at a time when Asian cinema was just coming into its own but was relatively unknown regionally and internationally. Cinemaya a quarterly film journal launched independently by Aruna Vasudev in 1988, had already paved the way.

NETPAC is especially proud to have brought awareness to independent and non-mainstream films by new directors whose works might have languished due to a lack of promotion caused by limited funds and resources.  Now Asian films have a prominent presence worldwide.

Among the many initiatives that NETPAC has taken over the past 25 years are:

The presentation of the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film at 30 major international film festivals throughout the world. This award was first presented at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1994.

We have published and co-published books on Asian cinema, among them are: Modernity & Nationality in Vietnamese Cinema by Ngo Phuong Lan, When Strangers Meet: Visions of Asia & Europe in Film (NETPAC and Asia Europe Foundation), Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema by Tadao Sato (NETPAC & Bloomsbury), An Incomplete Sentence: The Cinema of Dharmasena Pathiraja, Early Sri Lankan Cinema and Its Association with the South Indian Film Industry (NETPAC & AFC), Asian Film Journeys: Selections from Cinemaya (NETPAC & Wisdom Tree), Malaysian Cinema in a Bottle by Hassan Abd. Muthalib.

Conferences on Asian cinema have been organized since 1991 in Yamagata, Hawaii, Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, and Yogyakarta.

Cinefan, the NETPAC Festival of Asian Cinema was launched in New Delhi in 1999 and the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (JAFF) was launched in Yogyakarta in 2006.

The Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) in collaboration with NETPAC has instituted an award, the APSA NETPAC Development Prize, worth US$10,000 to an emerging filmmaker from Asia. NETPAC played an instrumental role in the development of Asiapacificfilms.com which is an Asian Pacific digital film library streaming films from Asia and the Pacific. The site was launched in October 2009 and can be accessed at www.asiapacificfilms.com.

NETPAC has programmed special packages of Asian films for international film festivals across the world and continues to do so amongst its wide network of contacts with film organizations, government and non-government agencies, film scholars, and critics with whom we work collaboratively in mutually beneficial activities to advance the cause of Asian cinema.

NETPAC has received two awards for its dedication in promoting Asian Cinema.
o Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival, 2009
o 20th Busan International Film Festival, 2015

At the very end of 2015 the Executive Committee of NETPAC has decided to expand its geographical landscape up to the Pacific Region. Now NETPAC stands for Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema. In 2015 NETPAC was registered in Australia as Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema—as an International NGO. Now NETPAC has a new Executive Board and an Advisory Committee which will spearhead activities in the future with Secretariat continuing in Australia.