The PFF Award Competition is the main feature of PIA Film Festival, which was launched in 1977.

It places no restrictions whatsoever on the eligibility of its entrants and completely disregards;
- nationality, age, sex
- film or video
- long or short
- drama, documentary, animation
In this regard, PFF Award is the most open of all competitions in the world's film festival circuit.

Anyone can participate in this competition.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grand Prize
The prize goes to a promising director of the film.
(Winner will receive 1,000,000 Yen)

Runner-up Award
This prize goes to a progressive director of the film whose talent is expected a level of Grand Prix.
(Winner will receive 200,000 Yen.)

Special Jury Prize
This prize goes to a director of the film who has the most considerable talent expected in the future.
(Three winners who each will receive 100,000 Yen.)

Entertainment Award (Horipro prize)
This prize goes to the film with the highest aspect of entertainment.

Gemstone Award (Nikkatsu prize)
This prize goes to the most progressive and daring film made beyond the common ideas of filmmaking.

Cinema Fan Award (Pia Eiga Seikatsu prize)
This prize goes to the film which the audience jury expects the screening in theaters most.

The Japan P.E.N Club Award*
This prize goes to a director whose activities are desirable for Japanese film industry.
*specially set up in 2012
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Total entries of the PFF AWARD 2013: 511
*Total entries to date: 19,718
*Total Award winning works to date: 555

The PFF Award is the main feature of PFF and is a competition for young artists who dream of becoming film directors.

Since 31st PFF in 2009, as a co-sponsorship enterprise, the PFF has been holding with Tokyo National Film Center, The National Museum of Modern Art which is the only national film organization.

After PFF in Tokyo, the finalist's films will travel to other major cities in Japan: Nagoya, Kobe、Kyoto and Fukuoka.

The PFF Scholarship is a system that began in 1984 and is responsible for the "nurturing" part of that PFF theme. Because of its name, it is often misunderstood as being literally a scholarship, but it is actually something different.　

It is a total production system with the purpose of the "nurturing of new filmmaking talent" through the encouragement of feature-length film production.

One of the PFF award-winning filmmakers and PFF takes ample time to experience the process of filmmaking from the planning stages and one film is produced over the course of a year to the completed work's release in theaters.

Currently, one filmmaker "who possesses the best future potential" is selected from among that year's PFF Award winners.

22 Scholarship films have been produced to date.

PFF Award winners as well as the PFF Scholarship funded films have taken part in international film festivals a total of over 300 times.

* The total number of films: 127
* The total number of screened international film festivals: 259
* Countries and regions: 46

From 2005, in a joint partnership with Waseda University, PFF announced a talent nurturing program under which one of the PFF Award winners is admitted into the graduate school of Waseda based solely upon their accomplishments at PFF the previous year.