The 10th Okinawa International Movie Festival is continuing efforts started last year to support The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Jeffrey A. Brez, a United Nations official in charge of NGO relations, is attending the festival to spread the word about SDGs. “193 member nations had to agree on these 17 goals, and that was a big achievement,” Brez explained at a presentation on April 21 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Naha. He added, “there was a two-year period in which businesses and general society provided feedback. All of the 17 goals are achievable, but ambitious. Can we end hunger? Yes, there is enough food for everyone.”

Also attending the presentation was Kaoru Nemoto, Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Tokyo, who explained how a movie festival got involved in a UN program. “The United Nations is not necessarily a good storyteller, but entertainers are very good at relating to people through laughter,” she explained. “So I made a plea to Yoshimoto Kogyo to help us disseminate the message about SDGs. The first promotion we did was this festival last year, when public recognition of SDGs in Japan was almost zero. But a recent survey shows recognition has risen to about 15 percent.”

Miyabi Haneda of Yoshimoto Kogyo explained that while the project to support SDGs is relatively new, it is in line with the company’s philosophy. “The company was founded by a woman named Sei Yoshimoto in 1912,” Haneda explained. “She made a style of comedy called rakugo affordable and accessible to everyone as we way to help society. As an early female CEO of a Japanese company, SDGs would have been something she supported.” Haneda went on to explain that after Northeastern Japan was hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the company launched several initiatives, such as having its comedians live in affected areas to revitalize communities through laughter.

Yoshimoto Kogyo has been supporting SDGs with what it does best—comedy. In the SDGs-1 Grand Prix, Yoshimoto’s long list of comedians are incorporating the 17 SDGs into their comedy routines to spread important messages through laughter and make them easy to understand for children. It also produced a series of 27 short, black and white films of people learning of SDGs for the first time in a café setting. The shorts are all performed in Japanese by Yoshimoto comedians, but the message has spread outside Japan. Brez explained that six of the films were subtitled in English and released with the #FunnySDGValentine to great success. The shorts are also played before film screenings during the Okinawa International Movie Festival.

Brez explained, “the goals are inspirational, but people cannot be inspired if they don’t know the goals. Yoshimoto Kogyo helps up reach audiences that we would not be able to reach ourselves.”

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