The “Laugh & Peace Competition Category” reflects most the theme of this movie festival, “Laugh & Peace”. The Category is placed as the core of this festival focused on the comedy. The good comedy works like “laugh” heals the human mind, are gathered in this festival. In this time, the rules were that the work should not have been released in Japan and that it should be a new feature comedy fi lm. A lot of works were raised from inside and outside country. Eight works elected by the preliminary selection from a lot of entries are screened. Following this, the committee together with five international cineasts decides on the grand prix work to announce on the fi nal day. Comedy is a genre that has many forms--a traditional slapstick comedy, a situation comedy that is fi xed on a main situation, a romantic comedy that is popular among women,a heartfelt comedy that combines tears and smiles, a black comedy that is satiric and ironic, and so on. Comedy is one of the common languages of the world, yet at the same time it demonstrates a culture, the individuality, and the national character of a country.This category, which is a showcase of comedy, was set up for conveying the wonderfulness of the comedy works widely from Okinawa, because the comedy makes people happy any time.
