Jeffrey Chan: Last News

Vivienne Chow The slate of offerings from Taiwan at this year’s European Film Market is a solid one, without a doubt. Among the 92 titles of films and projects, there are recent Golden Horse award-winning titles as well as new regional and international co-productions, both completed or works in-progress, in a diverse range of genres that come with promising premises, and a delegation of at least 10 sales companies that will present at the event in Berlin. Such a strong line-up of films available for international sales can be understood as a snapshot of current state of Taiwan cinema. There’s an emergence of a generation of new talent who dare to challenge the status quo of filmmaking and storytelling, and the ambition to reach an audience beyond the self-governed island is loud and clear. This is especially true following the international attention that “A Sun” and “The Falls” had previously garnered, the growing number of co-productions with new countries and partners thanks to the strong boost of the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) through its funding support, as well as new exhibition windows available from international streaming platforms.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Golden Horse Film Festival, which operates the premier awards in the Chinese-language film industry, has teamed up with Cannes’ Marché du Film to showcase a handful of new films and projects under the banner Golden Horse Goes to Cannes. To be presented May 16, the five films comprise new works from directors Chen Yu-hsun, Yang Ya-che, Huang Xi, Giddens Ko and John Hsu, with such high-profile producers as Lee Lieh, Sylvia Chang, Aileen Li, Jeffrey Chan and Hou Hsiao-hsien.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Culturally pluralistic and gender-diverse Taiwan is the backdrop for “The Chronicles of Libidoists,” a new film by Gilles Yang, a director whose three previous films have also explored the erotic. The story is inspired by “The Little Mermaid,” the traditional fairy tale in which a mermaid princess falls in love with a human prince. But in Yang’s hands there is a twist in that the mermaid turns out to be a boy.

Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion (FPP) has wrapped with Lee Yi-shan’s debut feature Chewing Gum winning the Grand Prize, which comes with a cash award of $32,000 (TWD1M). 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Chewing Gum” was named winner of the NT$1 million Grand Prize, the top award at the 2023 Golden Horse Film Project Promotion production event. Other prizes were awarded for works in progress and for TV series. The winners were announced at a ceremony on Wednesday at the New Horizon Event Space in Taipei, Taiwan.

Sony has added one more release to the summer theatrical calendar, Stage 6 Films’ Knights of the Zodiac on May 12.