島ぜんぶでおーきな祭-第7回沖縄国際映画祭-

On Wednesday March 25^th the “Creator’s Factory Final Selection” was held at Yoshimoto Okinawa Kagetsu in Naha city.

The “Creator’s Factory” project aims to discover promising new talent who will become leaders of the coming generation. It has a competition category that was established at the festival 2013.

The winner(s) of the Best Creator's Factory Award will get full support from the Okinawa International Movie Festival to produce their next work.

There were 3 final films carefully chosen by the jury. They were screened for the final review.  

After the showings, jury members, including directors Yuji Nakae and Tsutomu Makiya, and indie filmmaker Jungo Kitamura, came on stage with the finalists Kenji Shigeta of “I'll Go with You, Okay?”, Hsuan of “Japan, Dreamer Documentary Film” and Satoko Motoyoshi of “Kizu Ningyo (An Injured Doll)”.

Jury member and scriptwriter Motoko Nakae as well as the programming director of Sakurazaka Theater Kumiko Shimoji picked “Kizu Ningyo” as their winner. Audience comments also favored this work.

In the end Chairman of Jury Yuji Nakae announced that the Best New Creators Award winner was Satoko Motoyoshi. Her movie describes the difficult relationship between a defeated girl (who is actually a doll) and a man who continues to shoot indie film with stop action animation in the same vein as Jan Švankmajer.

At the Creator’s Factory Commendation Ceremony, the Shisa trophies (made in the image of a mythical lion) were given to the prizewinners on stage. Motoyoshi commented, “I am very surprised I was selected. Thank you very much. I will try even harder to create.”

She continued, “I have made animation in the past and I want to produce more of it. I am also interested in putting animation and live action together. I would like to explore this technique. I am thinking about making a film about high school life, especially the complicated friendships girls have.”

In the end, jury chairman Nakae said, “I am concerned about the fact many movies are being mass-produced like standardized goods. This situation isn’t good for the world film industry or Japanese movies. In the same way each person has a different face, each person has a different sensitivity. So I would like to encourage these 3 directors to continue to create using their sensitivity as a way forward for their work.”