The 14th Green Film Festival in Seoul (GFFIS), organized by the Korea Green Foundation, received a record number of submissions for its competitive categories, further cementing its status as Asia’s largest environment-themed film festival.

A total of 1,550 works ? 369 feature movies and 1,181 short movies ? from 104 countries were submitted during the 81-day registration period from Nov. 21, 2016 to Feb. 10, 2017. It marks an 11.5 percent (209 film) increase from last year’s 1,341.

Asia made up the largest portion of entries (40 percent) this year, unlike the previous three years when Europe submitted the lion’s share. Entries from Asia and Africa increased remarkably as a result of the dynamic environmentalist filmmaking in developing countries on those continents.

The finalists in the competitive sections (Green Competition and Korean Green Competition) will be announced at an official news conference in mid-April and posted on its website (www.gffis.org).

The 14th GFFIS will be held at Arthouse Momo in Ewha Womans University ECC and other locations in the university for seven days from May 18 to 24.

The sole environmental film festival in Korea has been praised for “exploring human being’s coexistence with the environment and projecting alternative thinking and practices for the future in an era of borderless environmental destruction and rapid climate change.”

A total of 26 million won will be awarded in prize money in six competitive categories:

Green Competition: Grand Prize (10 million won), Special Jury Award (5 million won), Audience's Choice (1 million won)

Korean Green Competition: Grand Prize (5 million won), Excellent Prize (3 million won), Special Audience Prize (2 million won)

The prizes will be awarded at the closing ceremony on May 24.