Media Research, Inc. (MRI) wanted to use the Internet to create a movie festival that is truly borderless, allowing audiences all across the globe to participate and enjoy. The staff also wanted the movie festival to act as a media platform for directors who want to showcase their talent worldwide. Ideally our movie festival would be interactive, allowing audience members to interact with directors. The result is a system that allows the audience to watch, comment, and rate movies. The award ceremony is the icing on the cake, a celebration in which the festival ends with glamour and style, where audience members, VIP guests, and the directors can interact in person.

After brainstorming for months MRI finally established, in January 2005, an original and unique movie festival and named it the “CON-CAN Movie Festival”: the CON(魂) stands for soul and CAN(観) is watching with true appreciation. The festival is operated by the “CON-CAN Media Plaza”. “CON-CAN” represents true appreciation of the soul behind the art and this portrays our mission to provide media that connect people soul-to-soul around the globe. With the launch of CON-CAN, people around the world are now able to enjoy short movies from any location that has an internet connection.

While CON-CAN is a movie festival that operates on the internet, it is, in every sense, a real movie festival. Strict guidelines apply, as they do for any other well-renowned movie festival. A combination of internal and external juries ensures a high-quality judging process. With persistent effort over several years, the CON-CAN Media Plaza has been able to obtain a superb global jury which includes both world-renowned film industry figures and individuals affiliated with other internationally acclaimed movie festivals. If you would like to know more about our jury members, please visit “The Jury” page.

As submissions started to come in from various areas of the globe, language became an issue to the CON-CAN Media Plaza. Movies were in a variety of languages, such as Chinese, French, and Spanish. To address this problem, we decided to subtitle all movies that will be posted on our website, in English and Japanese. The subtitles uphold the highest standard in the industry and are easy to understand for the general audience.

The CON-CAN Media Plaza wished to further showcase the global content in Japan and provide revenue to the directors. The creation of the “Revenue Share Program”, started in 2008 is the initial step towards offering talented new directors the opportunity of content distribution through CON-CAN to multi-media providers in Japan.

Since our　debut in 2005, we have successfully organized four movie festivals and are currently operating our fifth movie festival. In the four years of our history, we have received over 2100 submissions from 77 different nations. Each year, we hold the CON-CAN award ceremony where the press, movie related personnel, and other various VIP guests are invited to celebrate the grand finale of the CON-CAN Movie Festival.

January 2005	Grand Opening of the CON-CAN Media Plaza
April 2005	1st CON-CAN Movie Festival started *a total of 151 submissions & 25 participating nations* 30 nominated movies posted online for streaming and voting (until July 2005)
October 2005	1st CON-CAN Award Ceremony *CON-CAN Grand Prix: “Ohayo” (Director: Shinya Okada / Japan)*
October 2005	2nd CON-CAN Movie Festival started *a total of 341 submissions & 44 participating nations* 30 nominated movies posted online for streaming and voting (until January 2006)
April 2006	2nd CON-CAN Award Ceremony *CON-CAN Grand Prix: “Perkele” (Director: Arto Tuohimaa / Finland)*
April 2006	3rd CON-CAN Movie Festival started *a total of 616 submissions & 54 participating nations* 30 nominated movies posted online for streaming and voting (until July 2006)
October 2006	3rd CON-CAN Award Ceremony *CON-CAN Grand Prix: “Gospel of The Creole Pig” (Director: Michelange Quay / France)*
Nov. 2006	4th CON-CAN Movie Festival started *a total of 461 submissions & 57 participating nations* 80 nominated movies posted online for streaming and voting (until August 2007) (20 movies posted monthly for each of the 4 groups)
Sept. 2007	Collaboration with Kyoto International Indies Film Festival (First theatrical release of CON-CAN)
Nov. 2007	4th CON-CAN Award Ceremony *CON-CAN Grand Prix: “The Pond” (Director: Huang Ying / China)*
Dec. 2007	Collaboration with Jupiter Telecommunications, Japan’s largest cable television provider *Movies from CON-CAN were aired and all proceedings are donated to UNICEF Japan*
April 2008	The operator of the CON-CAN Media Plaza, Media Research, Inc. has become a member of the Japan Advertising Council
May 2008	Renewal of the CON-CAN website 5th CON-CAN Movie Festival started *a total of 550 submissions & 50 participating nations* 80 nominated movies posted online for streaming and voting (until August 2008) (20 movies posted monthly for each of the 4 groups)
Nov. 2008	5th CON-CAN Award Ceremony (scheduled)