Oscars chief Bill Kramer heads to Tokyo for first Asia trip
The boss of the Oscars is going to Tokyo.
Academy chief executive Bill Kramer will make his first trip to Asia in October 2026 for the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival, which runs Oct. 26 to Nov. 4. He will receive the festival's Global Cinema Leadership Special Award during the visit, as reported by Variety.
The festival has built a whole programme around him. Titled Academy in Tokyo, it frames Kramer's visit as a meeting point between Hollywood's awards body and Japan's film industry. Kramer has led the Academy, the Los Angeles-based organisation behind the Oscars, since 2022, and October will mark his first visit to Asia in the job. Its membership stands at more than 11,000 film professionals.
He will not travel alone. Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor and Meredith Shea, the Academy's chief membership, impact and industry officer, will join him in Tokyo. The three make up much of the organisation's senior leadership.
Their main outing is set for Oct. 28. Kramer, Howell Taylor and Shea will share a stage at Tokyo Midtown Hibiya Hall for a 90-minute panel moderated by TIFF festival director Hisamatsu Takeo. The session is free and open to the public, with advance reservations required. It falls in the opening week of the festival.
Kramer will return to the same hall the next day, Oct. 29, for a public conversation with Matsuoka Hiro, president and chief executive of Japanese company Toho. Matsuoka also sits on the board of trustees of the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, the Academy's film museum, according to Variety. Like the panel, the conversation is free with advance booking. The two sessions will play on consecutive days in the same venue.
The timing puts both events inside a busy week for the business. TIFFCOM, the rights market that runs alongside the festival where distributors and producers buy and sell titles, takes place Oct. 28-30.
For anyone in Tokyo, this means a rare open door. Awards bodies do not often stage free public talks abroad. These two sessions offer a plain-language look at how the Academy operates, and a chance to hear its leaders in direct conversation with one of Japan's major studios.
