Chokei Taira

Vice Chairman, Okinawa International Movie Festival Executive Committee
Chairman of Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau

Haisai, gusu-yo, chu-uganabira.
(Hello, everyone. How are you all?)
I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations for holding the “8th Okinawa International Movie Festival” this year.
Starting this year, the festival dates have changed to April, the “uri-zun season”, or the Okinawan early summer and the most pleasant time of year. I hope these changes will also bring another new facet to this year’s festival.
The OCVB’s tourism promotion strategy is themed on “moving experiences & creation”, and as a link between visitors and the residents of Okinawa, we are working on improving tourism pro-motions. At the same time, with the 8th Okinawa International Movie Festival, we are very much looking forward to the deepening of collaborative efforts with the local regions, and building con-nections among the many visitors from around Japan and abroad through the varied programs. For this year’s festival, the OCVB has also worked together with the local community and held screen-ings of community-based movies at various locations in Okinawa throughout the year.
The tourist season is approaching its peak. Through this movie fes-tival, I hope the appeal of Okinawa is widely conveyed to the world under the hoisted flag of “Laugh & Peace”, with lots of laughs and peaceful wishes.