GENEVA, Nov. 15 -- The World Health Organization (WHO) is launching its first ever film festival, WHO Health for All Film Festival, in May next year, the organization announced here on Friday.

The film festival, according to the WHO, aims to recruit a new generation of film and video innovators to champion and promote global health issues.

The organization will invite independent film-makers, production companies, NGOs, communities, students, and film schools from around the world to submit their original short films on health.

"Films are a powerful way to raise awareness, improve understanding and encourage action," the WHO said in a media statement issued here Friday.

Submissions can be on any health issue and/or social and environmental determinants of health for the first two categories of non-fiction and animation.

The third category will focus on nurses or midwives to pay tribute to the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife in 2020, noted the statement.

Only films completed between Jan. 1 of 2017 and Jan. 30 of 2020 are eligible for the festival, and the closing date for entries is Jan. 30, 2020, it added.