The Incubator for Film and Visual Media in Asia is organised by Hong Kong Arts Centre. Since its establishment in 1995, it has been serving as a platform that promotes and encourages creative talents in Asia, making short films, videos, animation and interactive media. It organizes the "ifva Awards" and "ifva Festival" annually. The ifva Awards commends talented filmmakers in the field of short films, videos, animation and interactive media. It has five major categories, including 'Open', 'Youth', 'Animation', 'Interactive Media' and 'Asia New Force', where each category has three awards. The ifva Festival is held in March every year. It includes the award ceremony of the ifva Awards, live performances and media art exhibitions.
History
The IndependentShort Film Competition was first announced by the Urban Council in 1992. The jury panel consisted of Ng Ho, Ann Hui, Allen Fong, Gloria Chan, and Freddie Wong. These awards were presented at the 17th International Hong KongFilm Festival on 8 April 1993. Simultaneously, the Urban Council provided a grant to the Hong Kong Arts Centre to support their Hong Kong Independent Video Awards, held in association with the Crossover Cultural Institute. The two competitions were merged as the Independent Short Film and Video Awards in 1995. The name was later changed to the present iteration.
ifva Awards
The ifva Awards aims to discover and nurture the next currents for local creative industry of moving images, encourage creativity, aesthetics and innovative use of medium and encourage cross-fertilization of creativity, knowledge and experience on media creation among different regions in Asia. The five categories, 'Open', 'Youth', 'Animation', 'Interactive Media' and 'Asia New Force' have three awards each, which are the Gold Award, Silver Award and a Special Mention. The Gold Award director of 'Open', 'Youth' and 'Animation' receives HKD 50000, HKD 20000 and HKD 50000 respectively. Ten nominated films will be shown in the ifva Festival as well.
ifva Festival
Each year, the ifva Festival features a specific theme and shows films related to the theme. As in the year of 2013, it focuses on experimental spirits, showing films such as Adventures of Tom Tomiczky and CHIRI/Trace.
