We are studio Gyoza and our film title is Exchange Diary. The theme is be your true self. It is about a lonely girl who cannot say no to her classmates. She begins writing her true feelings in a diary and exchanging with a mysterious person. In the end, she becomes more confident. There are many students like the main characters who cannot say no to a request so we hope those people will be brave enough to express their true feelings. **FILMS may be viewed on Youtube ("About the Conference" drop down menu) or in the Watch Parties: Thursday 8pm-9pm or Sunday 10am-12pm or 2pm-6:30pm!**

Our movie is Dreamer. We wanted to show the pain and beauty of chasing dreams. The main character had a dream of becoming an artist, but she became depressed because her work wasn’t recognized by anyone. Her family didn’t encourage her, and they tried to make her give up. Because of that pain, she started using drugs. Everyone has the potential to commit misconduct such as being dependent on drugs. We also wanted to show the role of friends. There is a person who is watching you always and you should cherish them. A friend is very important, but we realized through making this film that you must be your own heroine and overcome the weakness by yourself. **FILMS may be viewed on Youtube ("About the Conference" drop down menu) or in the Watch Parties: Thursday 8pm-9pm or Sunday 10am-12pm or 2pm-6:30pm!**

We are studio Popping Shower. When we considered the important things in our life, music came up first for all of us and we believe music has a special and great power to encourage and connect people. It is close to our mind. In this film, you will meet three characters, and music connects all the characters to each other. Only music can do this. We wrote the original story, script and planned everything in English, but in the end we wanted to express the feeling of the characters in Japanese with English subtitles so everyone can understand. **FILMS may be viewed on Youtube ("About the Conference" drop down menu) or in the Watch Parties: Thursday 8pm-9pm or Sunday 10am-12pm or 2pm-6:30pm!**

Hina is a university student. She thinks the most important thing is money and she only works for money. One day, she met a girl who was searching desperately for something. She helps the girl expecting money in return, but instead finds something you cannot buy with money. We had some trouble with sound and very noisy cicadas when shooting outside, but we tried our best to fix it in editing. This was the most difficult point. Please enjoy “What’s Your Treasure” - Caramel Ribbon studio

Babel On (2015) The Film and the Making Of It, OR Working Within Your Means To Make the Best Film Possible With What You Have: As a lifelong fan of movies, I would often watch interviews with filmmakers, and would come across a number of them lamenting about how a lack of funding or resources prevented them from fulfilling their visions on their projects. For years, I was sympathetic to these struggling artists, but in the past several years, every time I hear one of these laments, I wonder why they went ahead and made a film when they didn't have the proper resources to do so.

The fact of the matter is film-making is hard. It can be mentally, physically, and financially draining. So, if you're going to push yourself to make something, why not make the best thing possible with what you already have instead of compromising, then complaining about it later? This is what I've done with the three short films I've written, produced, and directed.

For this presentation, I will focus on my second short film, "Babel On", a self-financed science-fiction short that I wrote, cast, filmed, and completed in 2 months with minimal cast and crew, to explain how I was able to stretch my limited resources to make something I wanted to, and most importantly, could afford to make.