South Korea's only smartphone film festival opened here, featuring more than a thousand entries, the most in the festival's history, organizers said on Thursday.

Launched in 2011 under the motto that everyone can use their mobile phones to make films, the annual festival has developed into one of the world's largest smartphone film festivals in four years.

A total of 1,003 entries were submitted for the 5th Olleh International Smartphone Film Festival, more than twice the number in 2011.

This year's entries include 823 for the competition category and 20 scripts and some of the entries came from even relatively less-wired countries such as Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia and Nepal, according to the event's host, KT Corp., the country's largest fixed-line telecommunications carrier.

The opening and award ceremony took place at CJ CGV's Apgujeong venue in southern Seoul on Wednesday night to award 15 winners among the 30 finalists in the competition section.

Cho Kyu-jun's "The Stranger" received the grand prize, while the "Best Short under 10 Min" went to "The Present Future," by Kim Joong-yub.

In addition, Philipp Andonie of Switzerland won the best director for "Nachtschicht," while Paul Trillo of the United States received the jury prize for "The Life and Death of an iPhone."

This year, the festival introduced a feature section for the first time in the history of global smartphone film festivals.

The award-winning films will be shown at the CGV Apgujeong theater as well as on the festival's homepage and Olleh TV, KT's IPTV service, on Thursday and Friday.

In South Korea, a country where more than 60 percent of the country's population has smartphones, the devices are fast becoming an option for filmmaking.

Public interest in the use of smartphones for filmmaking began to grow when acclaimed South Korean director Park Chan-wook, best known for "Oldboy" (2003), and his brother, Park Chan-kyong, shot a short film on an iPhone 4 in 2011. The brothers brought home the Golden Bear award of the International Short Film Jury at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival for the film "Night Fishing." (Yonhap)