Source: Peatix

September 21st of every year is Peace Day (International Day of Peace) designated by the United Nations. The United for Peace Film Festival (UFPFF), a festival of short films for students on the themes of "peace" and "SDGs," is held every year to coincide with Peace Day. This year, marking its 15th anniversary, the festival will be held as a joint event with the NPO PEACE DAY, at Human Trust Cinema Shibuya on Saturday, September 20th, as one of the main activities of "PEACE DAY WEEK," which will be held from Monday, September 15th to Sunday, September 21st.

The first part of the PEACE DAY special program will feature an opening talk session by Takashi Inoue, Representative Director of the NPO PEACE DAY, and Kenji Sekine, Representative Director of the International Peace Film Festival, followed by a special screening of the documentary film "We Have a Dream."
This film follows six children from five countries who, despite their disabilities, refuse to give up and continue to pursue their dreams. It is the latest work from director Pascal Plisson, director of the documentary "School Road at the End of the World" (2012), which was a huge hit around the world.

■Trailer: Japanese subtitles (Link)
■Trailer: English subtitles

The second part of the festival will be the Sapporo International Short Film Festival (UFPFF) 2025, where we will screen this year's finalists, hold a judging session, and hold an award ceremony. Also, as a special invitational work, we will be screening "Two Sides of One War," which won the PLURAL+UFPFF Award 2024, sponsored by the UN agency with which we are an annual partner. We will also be screening works selected for the Sapporo International Short Film Festival 2025 Peace Selection.

The Peace Day Talk will be moderated by Ito Tsuyoshi, CEO of asobot inc., and will feature a talk session with Nenad Citin-Sain, director of the film "Kiss the Future," which follows the journey to realizing U2's legendary Sarajevo concert and opens nationwide on September 26th, and who will be visiting Japan, as well as Sekine Kenji, representative of the festival and film distribution company United People.

"Kiss the Future" is a documentary that takes a behind-the-scenes look at the legendary concert that U2 held in Sarajevo on September 23, 1997, in front of 45,000 people. The people of Sarajevo once coexisted regardless of ethnicity or religion, but conflict had torn them apart. U2 reunited these people through the power of music. Behind the scenes, it was said, there was one crazy idea. This documentary follows U2 as they fulfilled their promise to perform in Sarajevo after the end of the Bosnian War. Together with the film's director, Nenad Citin-Sain, we will consider actions toward peace in today's war-torn world. We look forward to your participation.

■Event Overview■
Date and time: Saturday, September 20, 2025 13:00-19:30 (doors open at 12:45)
Location: Human Trust Cinema Shibuya Screen 1 (8F Cocochi Building, 1-23-16 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo)
Participation fee: Part 1 1,000 yen, Part 2 1,000 yen, all-day ticket 2,000 yen *Cancellations will be accepted until September 15th.
Tickets will be on sale until midnight the day before. If there are any tickets remaining, you can also participate on the day.
Organized by: International Peace Film Festival, NPO PEACE DAY
Cooperation: Theatre Cinema Group
Sponsored by: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Shibuya Ward

Part 2: International Peace Film Festival (UFPFF) 2025 Cooperation System
Organized by: International Peace Film Festival General Incorporated Association Co-organized by: NPO PEACE DAY
Supported by: Otake Foundation
Supported by: United Nations Information Centre, International Organization for Migration (UN IOM)
Silver Partners: NPO PEACE DAY, United People Co., Ltd., Virgin Group Co., Ltd.
Partners: Oggi Frutta Co., Ltd., flotlo LLC, Forval Co., Ltd.
Individual sponsors: Tomoko Suzuki, Takayuki Nishi
Cooperation: Theatre Cinema Group, Sapporo International Short Film Festival (No Maps | FILM), Think the Earth, Yokohama Community Design Lab, SLOTH JINNAN COWORKING SALON

【program】
Part 1: PEACE DAY Special Program (13:00-15:00)
・PEACE DAY Opening Talk: Takashi Inoue, Representative Director of NPO PEACE DAY × Kenji Sekine, Representative Director of International Peace Film Festival
・Special film screening "We Have a Dream" (96 minutes)
・After-talk Featuring: Takashi Inoue, Kenji Sekine, and others

(break)

Part 2: International Peace Film Festival (UFPFF) 2025 (15:30-19:30)
・Opening speech: Kenta Usui, Secretary General of the International Peace Film Festival
Guest speech: Kaoru Nemoto, Director of the United Nations Information Centre (video)
・Finalist films screening and director speech
PLURAL+UFPFF Award 2024 Winner: "Two Sides of One War" by Ivan Kholodnikov (Israel)
・Sapporo International Short Film Festival 2025: Invited screening of Peace Selection works
・Peace Day Talk: Nenad Chitin-Sain, director of "Kiss the Future" × Tsuyoshi Ito, CEO of asobot inc.
・International Peace Film Festival 2025 Awards Ceremony
Closing remarks: Kenji Sekine, Representative Director of the International Peace Film Festival

[Official Judges]
Takashi Inoue (Chairman and CEO of LIFULL Co., Ltd.)
Toru Kubota (Documentary filmmaker/CEO of Docu Athan)
Katsuzo Takahashi (Director of the International Peace Film Festival)
Hiroki Tange (Filmmaker, Professor at Kyoto University of Arts)
Akihiro Nishizawa (Executive Officer, Tokyo Theatres Co., Ltd.)
Sahel Rose (Actor/Talent)

■About the NPO PEACE DAY■
Vision: "Realize a peaceful world without conflict"
Mission: "Connect the thoughts and actions of individuals who believe in peace, and create a system that realizes peace through partnerships."
We began our activities in 2018, and in 2019 we established the general incorporated foundation PEACE DAY with this vision and mission, and in 2024 we transferred our activities to an NPO.
We aim to realize not only a state of negative peace, an absence of war, but also a state of positive peace, an absence of war and indirect violence (structural violence) resulting from social structures such as poverty, hunger, oppression, and discrimination, throughout the world.
We will use PEACE DAY as a starting point to expand our activities so that we can abolish all violence, increase multicultural sensitivity through the power of dialogue and empathy, respect all life, and enable all people to be happy and find true peace of mind.
With the aim of realizing a peaceful world, we will become a platform that connects one million citizens, companies, and organizations, and create a movement that will change the world and contribute to world peace.

■About the International Peace Film Festival■

The United Nations Peace Film Festival (UFPFF) is a film festival with a peace theme. It has been held every year since 2011 on September 21st, the International Day of Peace designated by the United Nations, with the hope that young people from all over the world who wish for peace will get to know each other through film and make connections that transcend national borders. UFPFF hopes that through the production of films of less than five minutes, young people from all over the world will think about peace and take action to realize peace. It is also held in the hope that it will become an opportunity for viewers and entrants to connect with each other by learning about their differences and commonalities.

■Speaker Profile■

Takashi Inoue
Chairman and CEO of LIFULL Co., Ltd. / Representative Director of NPO PEACE DAY

Kanagawa Prefecture, born in Yokohama.
While working at Recruit Cosmos Co., Ltd. (now Cosmos Initia Co., Ltd.) as a new graduate, he had a strong desire to "change the way the real estate industry works," and in 1997 he went independent and founded Next Co., Ltd. (now LIFULL). Aiming to build a real estate information infrastructure using the Internet, he launched the real estate and housing information site "HOME'S (now LIFULL HOME'S)," which he grew into one of the largest sites in Japan. Currently, the company has about 20 group companies both in Japan and overseas, and provides services in more than 60 countries around the world.
His ultimate personal goal is world peace, and in addition to his work with LIFULL, he is also personally developing an industrial support project in the Republic of Benin, and serves as representative director of the Next Wisdom Foundation, a council member of the Well-being for Planet Earth public interest foundation, a director of the Japan Association of New Economy, a director of the 21st Century Learning Institute, and representative director of the Nascon Valley Council.

Nenad Chitin-Sign
Director of the film "Kiss the Future"
His latest documentary, "Kiss the Future," (September 26th (Friday) at Kino Cinema Shinjuku and other theaters nationwide), premiered at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival and opened the Tribeca Film Festival. The film won the Audience Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival and achieved a 100% critic rating and a 98% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. His previous work includes the 2018 short film "Samuel David," which won Best Short at the Rome Film Festival, and his directorial debut, "The Time Being" (2012), which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and won Best Cinematography. Earlier in his career, he served as Advertising Creative Director and General Manager at Tribal DDB, where he worked closely with Steve Jobs during his transition from NeXT to Apple. He served as an advisor to Apple on its communications strategy during that critical period.

Takeshi Ito
CEO of asobot inc. After working at a foreign advertising agency and in the editorial department of a culture magazine, he founded Asobot in 2001. He works on communication design in various fields with the concept of "Turning what you want to say into a form that can be conveyed." His main work includes the launch of the journal/tabloid magazine "GENERATION TIMES" (2004) and the founding of the NPO "Shibuya University" (awarded the Good Design Award 2007 in the New Frontier Design category). He also provides social sector consulting to support social issues in Japan, such as the domestic refugee problem, child poverty and abuse, and aging issues, and is involved as an expert in the field of international cooperation in countries such as Timor-Leste and Nepal. In addition, at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Graduate School's "Peace Building and Conflict Prevention Special Course," he is in charge of the master's curriculum "PEACE COMMUNICATION," which considers peace building from the perspective of communication strategies such as advertising and PR. Since 2019, he has also been involved in developing learning content, such as launching a new curriculum "LEARNING DESIGN" at the Waseda University School of International Liberal Arts.

Director of NPO Shibuya University / Director of NPO Okinawa Peace Cooperation Center / Lecturer, School of International Liberal Arts, Waseda University / Lecturer, Graduate School of Global Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

Kenji Sekine
Representative Director of United People Co., Ltd., Representative Director of International Peace Film Festival General Incorporated Association, Co-Representative of Peace Day Japan, Director of NPO PEACE DAY, etc. Graduated from the Department of Economics at Beloit College. During his graduation trip, he happened to visit a conflict zone and learned about the reality of the world, and later made realizing peace his life's mission. In 2002, he founded United People Co., Ltd., whose business objective is to solve world problems. After managing the fundraising site "E-Kokoro!" and the petition site "Sign TV," he started his film business in 2009. In 2011, he began activities to spread the United Nations' International Day of Peace, commonly known as Peace Day, in Japan. He established the International Peace Film Festival General Incorporated Association and holds the International Peace Film Festival (UFPFF) every year to coincide with Peace Day. In 2014, he started operating "cinemo," which allows anyone to hold film screenings on social issues and the SDGs. In April 2016, he and his family of four embarked on a trip around the world, spending about a year living in Costa Rica, which is drawing attention as an ideal country for the 21st century. He is the producer of the film "Mottainai Kitchen." His books include "United People."

Kenta Usui
Secretary General of the International Peace Film Festival
Born in Tokyo in 1994. While studying at Keio University, he made the short film "Tonawariawase," inspired by Japan-China relations, which was a finalist and winner of the AFP Award at the 2015 International Film Festival for Peace (UFPFF). After graduating from university, he worked at an advertising agency while supporting the film festival as part of the UFPFF family, and will serve as the festival's secretary general from 2023.

Venue