Taiwan auteur TsaiMing-liang has withdrawn his new feature IDon't Want to Sleep Alone from the Golden Horse Film Awards, declaring thathe would no longer participate in the event.

Tsai has also withdrawn hisfilm from the affiliated Golden Horse Film Festival, despite its slot as theevent's opening gala on Nov 10.

Tsai's film, which competedat the Venice Film Festival, received just two minor nominations from theAwards jury, for best supporting actress (Pearlly Chua) and best sound effects(Tu Duu-chih & Tang Shiang-chu). When nominations were announced, jury headChang Chang-yan explained that the jury had chosen not to prioritise "personalworks".

Tsai snubbed the event asthe "Golden Horse Genre Film Awards" after the two highest grossing local filmsat the Taipei box office this year - supernatural thriller Silk and coming-of-age drama EternalSummer - received the most nominations amongst local films, including BestFilm and Best Director for blockbuster Silk.

Tsai is no stranger tocontroversy. He previously declared that he would no longer enter the GoldenHorse Film Awards in the late 90s after his films The River and The Holesecured nominations but no prizes. At the Pusan International Film Festivallast month, he told Taiwan journalists that he would stop showing his films atthe South Korean event if he failed to secure a local distribution deal for I Don't Want to Sleep Alone.

The Golden Horse FilmFestival will screen 113 features from Nov 10-24 in Taipei including tributes to filmmakers Nicolas WindingRefn (Denmark), Matthew Barney (US) and Nobuhiro Yamashita (Japan). It hosts the world premiere of three local films:Lin Yu-hsien's Exit No. 6, En Chen's Island Etude and Wu Mi-sen's amour-LEGENDE.

The Golden Horse Film Awardsceremony will be held in Taipeion Nov 25.