In the Year the National Museum of Art's Grant Rose, the National Film Archive of Japan's Share of the Grant Fell Sharply. That Same Year, More Than 5,500 People Gave the Archive Over ¥150 Million

What Is Happening

The National Film Archive of Japan's crowdfunding and the Agency for Cultural Affairs' account of the grant

The National Film Archive of Japan ran a crowdfunding campaign from 25 June to 23 September 2026. The target was ¥100 million, and on 15 August a next goal of ¥150 million was added. The closing notice says: "we were able to receive support from more than 5,500 people that exceeded even the next goal of ¥150 million[1]" (translated from Japanese).

A press conference was held at the archive on 25 June, the day the campaign began. According to Bijutsu Techo, the speakers were the archive's director, the head of its curatorial division, the president of the National Museum of Art, and a film director who had sent a message of support. The magazine reports the explanation of the archive's finances as follows.

According to the explanation at the press conference, government budget cuts now urgently require the archive both to shift to a "financial structure that does not depend on national funds" and to "maintain its core operations."

(translated from Japanese)

The Agency for Cultural Affairs issued a statement setting out the facts about reporting on the campaign on 26 June, the day after it began. It names no outlet or article.

The statement shows no date, but the last-modified time the server returns for the page is 18:01 on 26 June (Japan time). An article that ran in Yahoo! News Expert on 27 June also lists the statement in its source line as "Agency for Cultural Affairs 2026/6/26 (Fri)". Its opening sentence reads as follows.

The National Film Archive of Japan began a crowdfunding campaign on 25 June 2026 (Reiwa 8) under the title "Our mission is to connect the memory of humankind. Please support the work of the National Film Archive of Japan", but in the reporting on it, some reports gave the misleading impression that the government had cut the National Film Archive of Japan's operating grant, so we would like to set out the facts.

(translated from Japanese)

According to the statement, the operating grant the state provided to the National Museum of Art for FY2026 was ¥8.46 billion[2]. It newly includes measures for rising prices and is about ¥320 million more than the previous year. The Agency itself then writes that it has been told the archive's share of the grant fell sharply from the previous year (we touched on this in our article reading the objectives in the original（このサイトの記事）).

The Tokyo Shimbun covered the campaign together with the National Museum of Art's fee rise on 25 September 2026. It wrote that "the archive's operating grant for FY2026 was about ¥358 million, 44% less than the year before[3]" (translated from Japanese), and that the archive began the crowdfunding in response to the cut. The same article carries a comment on the medium-term objectives from Naoya Yokota, representative director of ISVD and the author of this article.

So in the same fiscal year, the grant the state gave the institution went up while the archive's share of the grant went down.

Background & Context

How the archive came to be, and how the grant is split among the museums

The sixth museum of the National Museum of Art

The archive's official site describes its history. It began in 1952 as the film programme (film library) of the National Museum of Modern Art, and in 1970 it opened as the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. In 2018 it was established as the sixth museum of the National Museum of Art, an independent administrative institution.

On its crowdfunding page, the archive describes itself as Japan's only national institution devoted to film. In FY2025 its screenings drew 76,422 people against a target of 63,000, and its exhibitions 21,131 against a target of 15,500[4], exceeding both targets.

A split decided by the institution

An operating grant is money the state gives an independent administrative institution. For the National Museum of Art, the state gives one amount to the whole institution, and the institution decides how to divide it among its seven museums and its head office. The Agency's statement says that the institution's operations are funded by a budget made up of operating grants, self-generated revenue and other sources, and that the institution decides the allocation to each museum. It puts it this way.

The operation of the National Museum of Art as a whole is funded by a budget made up of operating grants, self-generated revenue and other sources, but the allocation of the budget to each museum, including the National Film Archive of Japan, which the National Museum of Art operates, is decided by the National Museum of Art from the standpoint of the autonomy and independence of an independent administrative institution's operations, and some museums see increases and others decreases from the previous year.

(translated from Japanese)

On why the archive's share of the grant fell, it says this.

We understand that in this year's allocation to the National Film Archive of Japan, the National Museum of Art adjusted the balance between operating grants and self-generated revenue across all its museums, and as a result the operating grant allocated to the archive fell sharply from the previous year.

(translated from Japanese)

The Agency goes on to say that it would like the National Museum of Art to make an appropriate allocation to each museum in light of each museum's circumstances.

"Diversifying income", the reason in the notice

The crowdfunding notice on the archive's own site sets out the costs before it gives a reason for the campaign. On the cost of preservation it says this.

To prevent damage to and deterioration of film, an environment of 2 to 10°C and 35 to 40% relative humidity must be maintained, which requires a great deal of spending on utilities throughout the year.

(translated from Japanese)

It goes on to say that specialists who know how to handle film and other materials are indispensable, that passing on their expertise is urgent, and that funds are also needed to strengthen screenings and exhibitions. It then continues as follows.

So we are now running a crowdfunding campaign, as part of our efforts to diversify and expand our income, toward the stable continuation of our activities and their future development.

(translated from Japanese)

The notice on the archive's own site does not use the words for operating grant, cut and budget (交付金, 減額 and 予算) (counted in the text saved on 25 September 2026).

"Diversification" is also a word in the medium-term objectives. They set out "expanding self-generated revenue by diversifying sources of funding". The same section also says the institution is to "pursue donations through active and strategic fundraising, including the use of crowdfunding" (translated from Japanese; our earlier article reads the objectives in the original（このサイトの記事）).

The donation page on READYFOR, meanwhile, lists a Nikkei article among its media coverage. The headline reads "National Film Archive of Japan turns to crowdfunding to keep its work going, following the cut in its operating grant" (translated from Japanese). The words are the newspaper's, not the archive's, but they appear on the archive's own campaign page.

The same page says that a donation deduction applies to "donations to the National Museum of Art, an independent administrative institution", and that the date of receipt is the date READYFOR pays the money in, planned for 10 November 2026 (translated from Japanese). The institution that decides the split is also the recipient of these donations. Its president also spoke at the 25 June press conference.

The money raised is for the archive's running costs in general, including collecting, preserving, repairing and restoring materials, and public programmes such as screenings and exhibitions. The notice also says that even if the target was not reached, the archive would not immediately shrink its operations.

The closing notice reads as follows.

We ourselves debated at length, amid conflicted feelings and unease, whether a national archive should run a crowdfunding campaign, and we started in a tense atmosphere. But right after the start we received a great many varied opinions and words of encouragement, and seeing far more people than we had imagined backing the archive's role and work gave us great encouragement, stimulus and energy every day.

(translated from Japanese)

Reading the Structure

What the Agency says the state funds and what the money raised is for; no museum-level split found

The work the Agency says the state funds, and the uses of the money raised

The Agency's statement also says this about the medium-term objectives' revenue target.

The self-generated revenue target in the medium-term objectives is a target for the share of exhibition costs covered by self-generated revenue, and for work such as collecting and storing, education and research, the state provides proper funding.

(translated from Japanese)

Here it is next to the uses of the money raised, as listed in the archive's notice.

Agency for Cultural Affairs

Statement of 26 June 2026. The state funds collecting and storing, education, research

Split among museums

Set by the institution

The archive's share of the grant

Fell sharply (it was told)

National Film Archive of Japan

Crowdfunding, June to September 2026

Uses of the money raised

Running costs in general

Reason given

Part of diversifying income

Support raised

¥150m+ from 5,500+ people

The archive's notice lists, within running costs in general, collecting, preserving, repairing and restoring materials and public programmes such as screenings and exhibitions. Neither document says how much of the grant was allocated to which work.

The Agency writes that the state provides proper funding, and the archive explains that it will use the money raised for collecting and preserving materials too. Because the money raised is for running costs in general and collecting and preserving are part of that, the two documents do not conflict.

Neither document says how much less state money is going to collecting and preserving in FY2026 than in the previous year. According to Bijutsu Techo, this year's budget for film-related collecting, preservation, restoration, new-print production and the like is ¥123 million[5], down from the previous year. The previous year's figure is not given in the same article.

The amount the state provides, and the amount a museum receives

The ¥8.46 billion in the Agency's statement is what the state gives the institution as a whole. The amount for each museum appears neither in the statement nor in the archive's notice. The statement goes only as far as saying the share of the grant fell sharply, without an amount or a percentage.

The amount for the archive comes from press reports. The Tokyo Shimbun gives about ¥358 million and a 44% cut. Eiga Natalie reports that at the 25 June press conference the head of the archive's curatorial division put the operating grant allocation for FY2026 (Reiwa 8) at ¥358.56 million[6].

So both the Agency's account, that the state's funding rose, and the reports that the archive's grant fell, can be true. One reason they seem to clash is that the same word, grant, is being used for the amount given to the institution and the amount given to a museum.

Depending on which amount you look at, the same year reads in opposite directions. To know how much of it reaches the museum's work, we would need to know what the amount allocated to the museum includes. The materials we could check do not say.

How the split is calculated

The Agency says the archive's share of the grant fell because the balance between grants and self-generated revenue was adjusted across all museums. The statement does not say which figures were brought into line, or how.

The outline is written down in the medium-term objectives. They say the institution will "hold back part of the budget allocated to each museum to create funds, and set up an incentive budget distributed according to each museum's actual self-generated revenue and its growth" (translated from Japanese). How much is held back, and how much each museum received in FY2026, is not stated.

After the accounts are closed, the supplementary schedules to the financial statements give each museum's operating grant revenue in a table by museum, with a column for the institution's head office alongside the museums' columns. That is accounting revenue, however, and a different figure from the allocation decided at the start of the year.

The medium-term objectives set a target for exhibition revenue to cover at least 65% of exhibition costs across the institution by FY2030[7]. Museums whose exhibition revenue, in the fourth year of the five, falls below 40% of their exhibition costs, among other signs of not fully fulfilling the role society expects of them[7], become subject to reorganization (our earlier article reads the objectives in the original（このサイトの記事）).

The Agency's questions and answers say that reorganization does not envisage closing museums, and that a museum's exhibition revenue falling below 40% will not by itself immediately make it subject to reorganization. How the adjustment of the split relates to these targets or to the incentive budget is not stated in the Agency's documents.

On the archive's own self-generated revenue, the objectives have a passage addressed to it alone. Its section says this.

The archive will increase its self-generated revenue by stepping up the supply of footage to television and other media, stepping up screenings that use borrowed works as well as its own collection, planning screenings with special admission fees, and actively renting out its facilities.

(translated from Japanese)

From 5 January 2027, the archive's admission fee for collection exhibitions (general) rises from ¥250 to ¥500, and for collection screenings (general) from ¥520 to ¥1,000[8] (our earlier article reads the objectives in the original（このサイトの記事）).

According to the archive's notice, preserving film costs money to keep temperature and humidity steady all year round. How that cost was treated in a split that uses self-generated revenue as one of its yardsticks cannot be checked until the overall split of the grant across the museums and how it was calculated are shown.

What to watch

We want to watch how the archive's share of the grant in FY2027 compares with FY2026, and whether the National Museum of Art shows, before the accounts are closed, the amount allocated to each museum and how it was calculated.

We also want to check whether the donations raised count as the archive's self-generated revenue in the calculation of the FY2027 allocation. The medium-term objectives place the pursuit of donations under "expanding self-generated revenue by diversifying sources of funding". It is not clear from the text whether donations are included in the "self-generated revenue" that the incentive budget looks at.

The medium-term objectives call for more detailed disclosure of visitor numbers, admission revenue and other figures. Disclosure of the allocation can reasonably be asked for as part of the same effort. How to think about dividing funding sources, and where crowdfunding fits in, is also covered in our guide to cash flow design for nonprofits（このサイトの記事）.

Remaining Questions

In the same fiscal year, the state's grant to the institution rose and the institution's allocation of the grant to the National Film Archive of Japan fell sharply. That same year, more than 5,500 people gave the archive their support.

What figures will next year's allocation of the grant be based on? And will those figures be published?

Recommended Reading

• 日本におけるフィルムアーカイブ活動史 (History of Film Archiving in Japan)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (石原香絵, 美学出版). A history of the work of collecting and keeping film in Japan. It shows what long effort lies behind the preservation work the National Film Archive of Japan has carried on.

References

On reports about the National Film Archive of Japan's crowdfunding — Agency for Cultural Affairs (2026). Agency for Cultural Affairs

Crowdfunding: Our mission is to connect the memory of humankind. Please support the work of the National Film Archive of Japan (in Japanese) — National Film Archive of Japan (2026). National Film Archive of Japan

Our mission is to connect the memory of humankind. Please support the work of the National Film Archive of Japan (in Japanese) — National Film Archive of Japan (2026). READYFOR

About Us — National Film Archive of Japan (2026). National Film Archive of Japan

FY2025 annual performance report — National Museum of Art (2026). National Museum of Art

Supplementary schedules to the financial statements for FY2025 (segment information) — National Museum of Art (2026). National Museum of Art

Revision of admission fees for collection exhibitions at the National Museum of Art (in Japanese) — National Museum of Art (2026). National Museum of Art

Medium-Term Objectives for the National Museum of Art (27 February 2026) — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2026). Agency for Cultural Affairs

On the next medium-term objectives for national museums and art museums (questions and answers, in Japanese) — Agency for Cultural Affairs (2026). Agency for Cultural Affairs

National Museum of Art sharply raises admission fees; the state's call for exhibitions that earn draws the response that a country that slights culture is not an advanced nation (in Japanese) — Tokyo Shimbun (2026). Tokyo Shimbun (25 September 2026)

The National Film Archive of Japan launches a crowdfunding campaign with a ¥100 million target; where the 'only national institution' stands as budget cuts loom (in Japanese) — Bijutsu Techo editorial staff (2026). Bijutsu Techo (26 June 2026)

National Film Archive of Japan starts crowdfunding to protect film heritage, with a ¥100 million target (in Japanese) — Eiga Natalie editorial staff (2026). Eiga Natalie (25 June 2026)

As reports say the National Film Archive of Japan is reduced to crowdfunding, the Agency for Cultural Affairs points to factual errors. What is the underlying problem? (in Japanese) — Hiroaki Saito (film journalist) (2026). Yahoo! News Expert (27 June 2026)

Statistics cited in this article

1. 1National Film Archive of Japan, crowdfunding campaign 'Our mission is to connect the memory of humankind. Please support the work of the National Film Archive of Japan'（September 2026） Open source
2. 2Agency for Cultural Affairs, statement on reports about the National Film Archive of Japan's crowdfunding（June 2026） Open source
3. 3Tokyo Shimbun, Kochira Tokuhobu section（25 September 2026） Open source
4. 4National Museum of Art, FY2025 annual performance report, appendix tables 3 and 4（June 2026） Open source
5. 5Bijutsu Techo, article on the National Film Archive of Japan's crowdfunding launch（June 2026） Open source
6. 6Eiga Natalie, article on the launch of the National Film Archive of Japan's crowdfunding（June 2026） Open source
7. 7MEXT, Medium-Term Objectives for the National Museum of Art（February 2026） Open source
8. 8National Museum of Art, 'Revision of admission fees for collection exhibitions'（September 2026） Open source

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