This year's Okinawa International Movie Festival program will offer four competition categories.
The main program collect films themed on our concept of "Laugh & Peace", and again offers an extensive list of funny and peaceful films. The selection of films from all over the world aims to produce a happy encounter with the world of movies.
The mission of film festival is to properly view the tidal stream of the world's film industry and introduce them to the home audience. With the evolution of digital technology and diversification of devices such as smart phones and tablets, video expression nowadays has moved beyond the boundary of just films.
OIMF has showcased not only films but unique features that seek different ways of expression.
Again we will present the "Pachinko Movie Award 2013". The unique video productions on Pachinko machines have been creating surprises as well-storied and nail-biting short movies.
The progress of digital technology has introduced video production to individuals. This made our decision to announce two new video competitions.
"Creator's Factory" will be developed as a rookie award style competition to discover the next generation's creators and their talent. The three juries will be comedian and director Itsuji Itao, film director Kaze Shindo, and producer Kazuyoshi Okuyama, representing each genre to turn up new capabilities.
We hope this factory becomes a place to introduce talented creators who bring fun, laughter and emotions.
The "Niibichi Movie Festival" is a collaboration project with FM Yomitan to introduce sideshow videos made for weddings in Okinawa.
This festival may be joined by anyone who wishs to give enjoyment and happiness to many. Please enjoy the emotional-filled works by the Okinawan people.
The Okinawa International Movie Festival hopes to give back to the movie culture of Japan by showcasing distinctive movies and by discovering unique creators.
Laugh・Peace
Laugh Category and Peace Category are the main programs based on the festival’s main theme of “Laugh & Peace”.
Feature-length films that make you either laugh, or feel sweet emotions are divided into the two categories.
In this year, as a result of a wide range of domestic and international film seeking, the line-up is full of variety - including a film that set an audience record, films with high reputations that have played in film festivals around the world, and a nominee for this year’s Academy Awards.
This wide variety of line-up also includes TV station films that shrewd directors set out to make, such as an adopted film from the collaboration of a school comedy drama of Yoshimoto Kogyo and TV station “Geinin”, starring NMB48, and a Science Fiction film starring Alan Shirahama.
Moreover, one film from each category will be selected for fan awards: “Laugh Category Uminchu Award Grand Prix” and “Peace Category Uminchu Award Grand Prix” as a result of the deliberation of Fan Juries selected from all over Japan, and audience votes at the venues in Okinawa.
In addition, the Jury Committee that consists of juries who are active internationally, will select only one “Golden Shisa Award” from films in both categories.
In this year’s festival, Mr. Joel Schumacher, director of “Batman Forever” and “The Phantom of the Opera”, is invited as the President of Jury. Other jury members include international actress Kaori Momoi, Demon Kakka, and Claude Gagnon。
Laugh・Peace Judges
Creator’s Factory
The “Creator’s Factory” is a project new to the 5th Okinawa International Movie Festival, which aims to uncover “the next generation of creative artists”.
Pachinko Movie Award
With the recent evolution of pachinko machine productions, and focusing on the “LCD Screen” which plays an important role, this competition was launched to evaluate these videos as “works”.
Nibichi Film Festival
This category is a collaboration between the Okinawa International Movie Festival and the “Nibichi Film Festival”, a world first festival that aims to find the best wedding entertainment video in Okinawa, which has been hosted since 2011 by FM Yomitan, under the catch phrase “Omedetai Korakoso Medachitai”.
