The Taipei Film Festival kicks off today (June 26) with the screening of local filmmaker Cheng Yu-chieh’s Yang Yang and will close on July 12 with Chang Tso-chi’s How Are You, Dad?
The festival will screen more than 145 local and international films, with sections including Vintage Berlin, Modern Germany and Voices from Latin America, along with retrospectives of Rob Epstein and Sergey Dvortsevoy.
It will also showcase the best of new Taiwanese cinema, including titles such as Leon Dai’s No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti and Chung Mong-hong’s Parking, in the Taipei Award section.
The New Talent Competition will screen first and second films from directors around the globe, including Korean director Yang Ik-june’s Breathless and Sebastian Silva’s Sundance grand jury prize winner The Maid.
The festival is also attempting to attract more international attention at a time when the Taiwanese film industry is showing signs of revival.
The Government Information Office (GIO) recently unveiled an extension to its subsidy schemes for local productions under which films with a Taiwanese director will be eligible for a 20% subsidy if their box office revenue exceeds NT$20m ($435,000). Previously they had to gross more than $1m to qualify.
At Cannes this year, the Taiwanese government said it will pump $228m (NT$7.5bn) over five years into its local film industry, including programmes to support international co-productions and a closer working relationship with mainland China.
Reflecting warmer ties between Taiwan and mainland China, the two sides are currently hosting the first ever Cross-Straight Film Exhibition in which films and filmmakers from the mainland are visiting Taiwan and vice versa.
The Taipei Film Festival runs June 26-July 12 with a televised closing ceremony on July 11.
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