Last week’s Jalopnik Film Festival was a smashing success, and became a unique intersection between car culture, filmmaking, and the Gran Turismo series.

Announced in Tokyo this past Wednesday, September 18th is the latest version of Gran Turismo 6, exclusive to Asia and set to be released December 5th, 2013.

What an amazing week this has been. Not only has there been a steady influx of news regarding GT6 and things related to GT6 (with more coming!), but there was also the event of the week, the coveted special as it were; of course I’m referring to the Jalopnik Film Festival.

1000km in the Black Forest – that’s all that stands between GT Academy and two GT3 world titles.

Unveiled at the opening night of the Jalopnik Film Festival inside Classic Car Club Manhattan was a film documenting Polyphony Digital’s own Kazunori Yamauchi, entitled “KAZ: Pushing the Virtual Divide”.

The latest Seasonal Events are now available in Gran Turismo 5, featuring a series of two events exclusive to non-racing cars with no more than 500PP for this week’s time trial, and no better than Comfort/Soft compounds for all events.

Kazunori Yamauchi has confirmed to EuroGamer that Gran Turismo 6 is set to receive a “fairly large” patch when it releases on December 6th, with further supporting updates scheduled to last 12 months.

Italian gaming website, multiplayer.it toured the offices of Polyphony Digital and while mentioning more track and vehicle announcements are on the way in the form of paid and free content alike, Australia will be represented in-game with “top secret” locations.

Polyphony Digital’s new engine sounds likely won’t be included in Gran Turismo 6 when the game is released this December. However, they could be changed in a future game update, according to an interview with Kazunori Yamauchi from EuroGamer.

Kazunori Yamauchi will be the star guest of the premier discussion panel at the Gran Turismo-sponsored Jalopnik Film Festival this Wednesday, September 18.

Gran Turismo 6 has yet to make it’s way into our homes and there’s already talk of it’s successor, Gran Turismo 7. It would appear, at least at the moment, that the simplified system architecture used in the PlayStation 4 will allow Polyphony Digital, as well as any other developer, to drastically shorten the amount of development time required; more to the point, it will allow PD to return to their usual release schedule which ranged anywhere from 2-4 years.

It wasn’t over though – the judges were locked away in secret in the Silverstone Wing’s Race Control and took two hours to come to their decision. Any of the final seven would have made a worthy champion and each of the four drivers in the final race made a great case for themselves, but the judges had to pick just one and eventual choose Portugal’s Miguel Faisca as 2013 GT Academy champion.

Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has shared their latest interview with GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi, and his comments have been translated by Polygon.

The latest Seasonal Events are now available in Gran Turismo 5, featuring a series of five expert level racing events exclusive to vehicles built on or before 1969 with no more than 500PP and no better than Comfort/Soft compounds.

To enter the contest, draw up your dream track in your favorite image editor, and post it in the comments here before 5:00pm Eastern Time on Friday, September 13th. Jalopnik’s editors will select “the best one” next Monday and announce the winner. See the official contest rules for more information.

Gran Turismo 6 launch details were outlined for the Japanese market during a special PlayStation media session hosted by Sony on Monday.

Reuters recently published an interesting article which offers an interesting look at the fascinating but rarely-discussed business of racing games, which are becoming increasingly important as auto makers look to reach out to consumers.

It’s been much quieter this week thanks in part to the Tokyo Game Show being right around the corner, however, while there hasn’t been any newsworthy tidbits regarding the upcoming Gran Turismo 6 as a game, there is the upcoming Jalopnik Film Festival, presented by Gran Turismo 6.

It’s been a while since we’ve heard about Gran Turismo’s GPS “Data Logger” functionality, formally revealed at a joint press event between Polyphony Digital and Toyota at Fuji Speedway almost exactly one year ago.