#[Herald Interview] The world’s first festival of NFT film, art on the way – starts in Newport Beach

A South Korean film director and the mayor of Newport Beach will jointly host the world’s first non-fungible token film and arts festival in Newport Beach – a California coastal mecca just an hour from Hollywood.

“I thought of hosting the Beach Cities NFT Film & Art Festival because of the currently centralized and inefficient way of making films,” said Kim Jeong-jung, a film director and the festival’s organizer, during an interview with The Korea Herald .

“Currently, major film studios monopolize the production and distribution of films worldwide. Making films NFTs will reduce the power of major film studios and give more power to filmmakers,” Kim said.

His festival, which is planned to launch in the spring of 2023, is aimed at educating the public about the importance of allowing the film industry to use NFT technologies and move into the virtual space, he said.

Beach Cities NFT Film & Art festival will consist of three parts, the first of which is the film festival, as well as simultaneous screenings in the metaverse and on yachts.

The festival is scheduled to change locations and move from coast to coast from Newport Beach, San Diego, San Francisco to eventually reach the port cities of Korea at Busan and Jeju, according to Kim. Newport Beach was chosen as the best location for the festival’s launch.

“Newport Beach is warm to foreigners and offers an excellent scenery that can be an inspiration for developers of metaverse platforms,” ​​said Kevin Muldoon, the mayor of Newport Beach, during the interview held in Seoul.

“Newport Beach is honored to host this exciting endeavor, and residents attending the festival will benefit from the opportunity to learn more about the emerging industry (of metaverse and NFT technologies in the film industry),” Muldoon said.

Newport Beach and South Korea’s North Gyeongsang province recently signed a memorandum of understanding to provide a platform for the metaverse film festival. The North Gyeongsang Provincial Office stands as the only municipality here that has its own metaverse policy development office.

At the NFT Art Fair, where there will be metaverse and offline exhibitions of NFT artwork, it will be held together with a virtual NFT marketplace. Special forums dedicated to artist networking are scheduled to take place.

Kim believes, with blockchain technology, a completely decentralized method of posting artwork becomes available.

“Also, posting artworks as NFTs and exhibiting them in metaverses will strengthen artists’ rights and more directly connect them to audiences by eliminating the middlemen,” he added.

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