November 29, 2024

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Founder of Beach Cities NFT Film & Art festival Kim Jeong-jung (left) and Kevin Muldoon, mayor of Newport Beach, pose for a picture in Seoul, Thursday. (Lee Yoon-seo/The Korea Herald)

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

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

“Currently, major film studios are monopolizing the production and distribution of movies all across the globe. Turning movies into NFTs will lessen the power of major film studios and give more power to filmmakers,” said Kim.

His festival, scheduled to launch in spring of 2023, is aimed at educating the public on the importance of having the movie industry utilize NFT technologies and transition 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 its location and move from coast to coast from Newport Beach, San Diego, San Francisco to eventually reach port cities of Korea at Busan and Jeju, according to Kim. Newport Beach was selected as the prime spot for the festival's launch.

"Newport Beach is warm to foreigners and offers an excellent natural scenery that could be an inspiration for metaverse platform developers," said Kevin Muldoon, the mayor of Newport Beach, during the interview held in Seoul.

"The 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 film industry)," said Muldoon.

Newport Beach and South Korea's North Gyeongsang Province recently signed a memorandum of understanding over providing a platform for the metaverse film festival. The North Gyeongsang provincial office stands as the sole municipality here that has a separate office for developing metaverse policies.

NFT Art Fair, where there will be metaverse and offline exhibitions of NFT artworks, will be held alongside a virtual NFT marketplace. Special forums dedicated to the networking of artists 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.

By Lee Yoon-seo (yoonseo.3348@heraldcorp.com)