The Pyeongchang International Peace Film Festival (PIPFF), a new event that has been set up to promote inter-Korean relations on the peninsula through film, will stage its first edition in the cities of Pyeongchang and Gangneung, Gangwon Province, in August of next year. The festival will be put on by the Gangwon Film Commission with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korean Film Council.

Veteran actor MOON Sung-keun has been appointed as the chairman of the organizing committee of the Pyeongchang International Peace Film Festival while actor-director PANG Eun-jin, known for Princess Aurora (2005) and Way Back Home (2013) while also heading the Gangwon Film Commission, will serve as PIPFF’s festival director. MOON is also a co-chairman of the Korean Film Council’s recently established Special Committee for Inter-Korean Film Exchanges.

The first edition will be part of a special project to commemorate the centenary of filmmaking on the Korean peninsula next year. The Gangwon Film Commission has previously stated that they “hope that this film festival will become a stepping stone for overall inter-Korean exchanges in the arts and culture more broadly.” The festival will take place in Pyeongchang, Gangneung and around the Geumgangsan Mountain, the same region that served as the host of this year’s Winter Olympics event.