The Pitching showcase at Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) will see several new awards introduced this year.
These include the Chi-Ling’s Future Makers Award, established by Taiwanese actress and model Lin Chi-Ling to support works that highlight women’s issues, while Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) is joined by France’s CNC as a new sponsor to offer a $30,000 prize and European market support to one Project selection.
Running November 4-7, the lineup features adaptations of renowned IP and international co-productions with strong market potential.
The Pitching selection is split across two strands: 56 titles in Project, for film and series proposals; and 38 in Story, reflecting rising interest in IP development. Nearly 700 submissions were received from 44 countries.
The titles highlighted here will also be presented at the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion showcase (November 17-19).
Burning Blossoms (Tai-Japan)
Dir. Su I-Hsuan
Pros. Hitoshi Endo, Nobu Awata
Prodco. Suz Creative Studio
Budget $1.5m
Set in 1963 Tokyo against a backdrop of postwar recovery and Cold War tension, Burning Blossoms follows a Taiwanese student who joins a pro-independence group. Her ideals are soon tested when she falls for an informant working for the Chiang Kai-shek regime, forcing her to navigate the blurred lines between loyalty, politics and the price of freedom.
Born during Taiwan’s martial-law era, writer/director Su I-Hsuan was drawn to the story after discovering the suppressed history of Taiwanese students in Japan who fought for self-determination under constant surveillance.
“They could have lived peaceful lives abroad, but chose to speak up for a free Taiwan,” says Su. “I wanted to understand what kind of belief or love for their homeland could drive such a choice, and that became the emotional core of Burning Blossoms.”
Su describes the film as a poetic political drama, intimate in tone yet grounded in history. Focusing less on ideology or violence, she aims to capture how love and conscience endure in such times.
It marks Su’s second feature following 2023 queer political drama Who’ll Stop The Rain, which played festivals including Taipei, Tokyo and Rotterdam.
Produced by Hitoshi Endo and Nobu Awata, Burning Blossoms is in script and early visual development. The team also plans to pursue co-production and government funding from both Taiwan and Japan.
Contact: Suz Creative Studio suz.creative@gmail.com
Soul Lantern (Tai)
Dir. Danny Tseng
Pros. Lester Hsi, Fiona Hu
Prodco. D-Day Pictures
Budget $1.2m ($170,000 raised)
The latest feature from producer and director Danny Tseng follows a Taiwanese artist living in the US who returns home after her mother’s death by suicide. When her family turns to ‘Soul Lantern’, an artificial intelligence (AI) grief service that recreates the likeness of the deceased, she is forced to confront memories of her mother, whose love masked an incessant need for control over her daughter. Grief and technology collide with obsession and revenge from beyond the grave.
Director Tseng says the story was born from a mix of empathy and unease, inspired by a real Taiwanese news report about a father who used AI to recreate his late daughter’s presence. “I could empathise with his profound longing and desperation, that visceral, human desire to see a loved one again,” says Tseng. “[But] what he brought back wasn’t truly her. That paradox between love and illusion became the seed of this film.”
Tseng describes the story as a psychological horror-thriller that will merge ancient Taoist soul-summoning rituals with AI technology. He looks to build a slow-burning sense of dread through the exploration of grief, guilt and inner decay, exploring how human longing can morph into something monstrous.
Soul Lantern is produced by Lester Hsi, director of 2020 hit The Bridge Curse and its 2023 sequel The Bridge Curse: Ritual, alongside Fiona Hu of D-Day Pictures.
Contact: D-Day Pictures
Spent Bullets (Tai-US)
Dir. Henry Tsai
Pro. Jacqueline W Liu
Prodco. Each Other Films
Budget N/A
Adapted from Terao Tetsuya’s bestselling short story collection, this film follows a Taiwanese software engineer in Silicon Valley who embarks on a road trip to Las Vegas with his girlfriend to mourn a gifted classmate who took their own life. As they cross the desert, playful banter devolves into confession and confrontation, revealing buried secrets and redefining what success and love mean in a world driven by ambition.
“I was captivated by the plight of being a genius, and the subtle and hard-to-define erotic relationships in the stories,” says director Henry Tsai. “I was inspired to tell a story on screen that explores the correlation between success and love.”
Tsai envisions the project as a raw and intimate road movie set against the vastness of the US desert landscapes, anchored by the actor’s performances and emotional realism.
This book-to-screen adaptation will mark the feature directorial debut of Tsai, who won the Golden Horse Award for best original screenplay in 2008 for Winds Of September. His short film Love After Time competed at Sitges in 2017, while Live Stream From Yuki <3 was selected for Sundance in 2018.
Spent Bullets also marks Tsai’s first collaboration with producer Jacqueline W Liu, co-founder of Each Other Films. Her producing credits include 2017’s End Of Summer and 2020’s Little Big Women, both of which premiered at Busan.
Contact: Claire Wang, Each Other Films
Spring’s Grocery (Tai-Indo)
Dir. Pan Ke-Yin
Pro. Holly Yushan Chan
Prodco. Neverland Entertainment
Budget $1.39m ($24,500 raised)
Marking director Pan Ke-Yin’s second feature, this Taipei-set coming-of-age comedy follows a teenager who enters herself and her mother in a cooking competition to sabotage the latter’s budding romance with a grocery delivery driver.
It is inspired by a true story featured on Taiwanese TV show Guess Who about an Indonesian Chinese woman who moved to Taiwan and now runs a grocery store that has become a haven for fellow migrant workers.
Producer Holly Yushan Chan was drawn to the story’s warmth and humour but wanted to reimagine it through the eyes of a daughter.
For Pan — whose debut Family Matters has earned eight nominations at the upcoming Golden Horse Awards, including best new director — the project is a continuation of his exploration into intimate family stories with social undercurrents.
“Wherever there are people, there will be discrimination,” he says. “Sometimes it comes from those closest to us, often from a lack of understanding. Through comedy and sensitivity, I hope to illuminate the small but powerful light of human connection.”
Spring’s Grocery is set to blend realism with comedic exaggeration, using imagined sequences to reveal the characters’ inner worlds. It is executive produced by Cora Yim, co-founder of Sixty Percent Productions and S11 Partners, and Janice Chua, the Singapore-born film producer whose producing credits include Crazy Rich Asians.
The project is developed through Emerge 2.0: Chinese-language Feature Film Lab, and has secured initial financing through Taiwan Ministry of Culture’s Script Development Grant.
Contact: Neverland Entertainment
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