In December 2005, the Korean Entertainment Film Festival was inaugurated in Osaka to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Japan–South Korea relations.

In addition, Malaysian and Thai films from South Asia were also introduced in the 3rd Festival in 2007.

At the 4th festival in 2009, film critic Sōzō Teruoka was appointed the programming director.

was adopted as the theme in order to introduce premiering films and new directors from Japan.

[3] In 2018, the Housen Short Film Award was established by the Housen Cultural Foundation to award the best short film with length of less than 60 minutes which screen at OAFF as Japan Premieres.