Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Market, the world’s most iconic animation exhibition, is being held from June 11-17. Works from Taiwan have received widespread recognition, with the immersive works Black Hole Museum + Body Browser and Red Tail standing out among the 91 pieces selected from 26 countries. Both are nominated among the seven finalists in the festival’s VR Works category, while in the International Animation Film Market (Mifa), Bei Ke Dao (The Island of Shells) has been selected in the official Mifa Pitches’ Digital Experience category, with the opportunity to be recommended to international professionals and garner greater cross-national cooperation resources.
Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) presents Taiwan Pavilion at Mifa’s physical event for the first time with 27 Taiwan industry professionals taking part and 39 works represented. With the “Partners Pitches: Spotlight on Taiwan” initiative, co-organized with Mifa, TAICCA hopes to advance more opportunities for international cooperation and elevate the creative capacity of Taiwanese animation. TAICCA Chairperson Homme TSAI says, “Taiwan’s freedom and diversity, and its animation market that lays particular emphasis on innovative themes and imagination, present excellent development opportunities and advantages for cooperation. TAICCA hopes through in-person participation and international exhibition to boost the domestic industry’s opportunities for international exchanges and advance T-content (Taiwan Content) into the global animation mainstream.”
For the festival competition, two Taiwanese films have been nominated in the VR Works immersive category. These respectively are Black Hole Museum + Body Browser, a remarkable cross-disciplinary work from YiLab founder SU Wen-chi that uses virtual reality to translate physical performances to the screen, as well as Red Tail, a work that interprets childhood feelings and memories from Fish WANG, winner of Best Animated Short at the 2019 Golden Horse Awards. This latter work garnered a special mention at last year’s NewImages Festival, Europe’s largest exhibition of immersive content, and was also nominated in the Venice Immersive Competition at the Venice Film Festival.
For the Mifa segment, in addition to Bei Ke Dao (The Island of Shells), a VR project that has been awarded support under TAICCA’s Future Content Prototype Development program, being selected in the Mifa Pitches’ Digital Experience category, a variety of animated works and projects are showcased at the Taiwan Pavilion. These include Compound Eyes of Tropical, a work adapted from Southeast Asian folklore that won Best Animated Short at last Year’s Golden Horse Awards; A Night with Moosina, a work that combines the theme of Taiwan’s rural wonder with warm hand-painted brush strokes that recently won Best Animated Film at the Golden Harvest Awards; PIGSY, an adaptation of the classic Journey to the West co-produced with Submarine of the Netherlands; A Mighty Adventure, written and directed by Toe YUEN, whose previous directorial work My Life as Mcdull won Best Film at Annecy in 2003; and How To Be a Mind Reaver, adapted from the highly popular Taiwanese fantasy/comedy comic that twice landed on the front page of Reddit. These works represent different styles and themes in Taiwanese animation, bringing high-quality Taiwan content to a wider international market.
More than 100 animation professionals worldwide joined Partner Pitches: Spotlight on Taiwan.
In addition, the “Partners’ Pitches: Spotlight on Taiwan'' initiative, co-organized by TAICCA and Mifa, invited an international panel of judges to select five animation projects with market potential. These include Crazy Night Market from Xanthus Animation Studio, which takes Taiwan’s street food culture as its inspiration; Deer May from Mangowork Studio, based on Taiwan’s distinctive flora and fauna; The Shaogao Show animated collection derived from the popular illustration; Grandma and Her Ghosts 2: Baby Power, a sequel to WANG Shaudi’s classic animation feature from 25 years ago; and Time in a Bottle, a new work from the team behind the Golden Horse Best Animated Short-nominated The Weather Is Lovely. These selections seek to create further opportunities for Taiwanese works and international joint ventures.
International industry professionals engage in vibrant conversations with talents from Taiwan.
Taiwan Pavilion Online Catalogue｜https://pavilion.taicca.tw/2023-mifa/
Taiwan Pavilion Showreel｜https://shorturl.at/BJPUV