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Getting animated about film

Animation takes all sorts of unexpected forms at the Taiwan International Animation Festival. PHOTO COURTESY OF TIAF

Even as few as five years ago, the popular perception of animation film was of entertainment for kids. It was not a medium to address serious issues. At the same time, within the film industry, there are few who would regard it as unimportant.

The shift in perceptions was underlined in 2001 when Shrek, an animation film by Dreamworks was selected for inclusion in the official competition at the Cannes film festival -- a festival that prides itself for honoring artistic films.

A few months later, at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival, Japanese animation maker Hayao Miyazaki took away the Golden Bear award with Spirited Away. And then in the following year, more and more quality animation feature films hit global markets -- Ice Age, Atlantis and others -- all of them box office gold.

It comes as no surprise that Taiwan has now put together its first animation film festival. Starting today, The Taiwan International Animation Festival (TIAF) will open in Kaohsiung, and will tour to Hsinchu and Taipei.

The festival will present a feast of animations with 335 films from 17 countries. The first week will be at the Kaohsiung City Film Library and the following weeks are at Taipei's Spot-Taipei Film House and the Hsinchu Municipal Image Museum.

"When we started preparing last year, we did not expect this to be a huge event. But the response from the animation industry, local and overseas, was so enthusiastic. And the works submitted to us were excellent. We decided to make it big," said Chen Yi-ching (陳怡菁), program director of TAIF.

In a way, the first TAIF can be seen as a bridge between Taiwan's animation makers and the international film industry. There is the studio section, focusing on three major up-and-coming international studios for animations. They are Folimage Animation Studio from France, the Seoul Animation Center from South Korea and Pilot Film Studio from Russia. The 20-year old Folimage is well-known in Taipei with many products selected for the Golden Horse Film Festival and the Taipei Film Festival.

What: Taiwan International Animation Festival When and Where: Kaohsiung: Apr. 4 to Apr. 10 at Kaohsiung City Film Library Taipei: Apr. 11 to Apr. 19 at SPOT -- Taipei Film House and Show Time Cinema (欣欣晶華影城) Hsinchu: Apr. 23 to Apr. 27 at Hsinchu Municipal Image Museum Tickets: Kaohsiung and Hsinchu: free. Taipei: NT$150, half price for students Ticketing: Acer ticketing outlets For your information: -- SPOT -- Taipei Film House, 18, Chungshan N. Rd, Sec. 2, Taipei, tel: 02-2511-7786; http://www.spot.org.tw -- Hsinchu Municipal Image Museum, 65, Chungcheng Rd., Hsinchu City, tel: 03-528-5840, http://www.hmim.gov.tw -- Kaohsiung City Film Library, 10, Hohsih Rd., Yencheng district, Kaohsiung City, tel: 07-551-1211"

The Seoul Animation Center is a state-funded institute which serves to provide filmmakers with funding, equipment and marketing aids. The boost to Korea's animation industry (both for computer games and films) in the last three years has a lot to do with such a establishment.

As for the Moscow-based Pilot, the studio has gained its fame in taking numerous prizes in more than 50 film festivals including the Oscars and Cannes. The three studios will showcase in total 34 animation shorts.

The fetival is also a chance to provide a comprehensive look at Taiwan's animation industry, which is currently in a transition phase. Taiwan's animation companies used to play a major part in making Disney blockbuster animations by doing OEM. But now these companies are aiming to create their own animation feature films.

The companies taking part in the festival include Wang Film Productions (宏廣動畫), CG Computer Graphic Inc (西基電腦動畫), and Hong Ying Universe (宏鷹世界). Wang Film will present The Quest of Magic (學仙記), an animation feature that uses pencil and ink painting. CG will present the well-known Chinese comic book story Master Q (老夫子) and Hong Ying will present two computer graphic shorts, Mamamiya and Lulala. These local studio works can be seen in the screening section called Creation in Taiwan.

Taiwan's individual animation makers will be exhibiting their talents too. Four outstanding films were selected as the opening films to the festival. They are the fine pencil work of Hsiao Fu-ching (蕭輔青) in Fish Seller; Chiu Yu-feng's (邱禹鳳) Pray For the End which is a work made with sand and photocopied cut-outs.

And there are two 3-D computer graphic works: Nothing by Chen Ming-he (陳明和) and The Flowing Mind by Tsai Rong-hua (蔡榮華). Their works are collected in the category, New Vision From Taiwan.

TAIF of course offers a section of excellent works, recent award-winning animation films and other innovative work. This section is called New Vision. The films were selected by French animation maker George Lacroix, UK animation scholar Jayne Pilling and Taiwan director Wang Tung (王童).

It is expected that, in the next years, this will develop into a competition section and will offer a cash prize. Must-see films are 2002 Berlinale and British Academy winner War Game by British filmmaker, Dave Unwin. Flux, an ink animation from Canada, A Stone of Folly, a puppet animation from Canada and Hunger Artist, From the US, which is an animation combining celluloid painting, puppets, photocopies cut-outs and 3-D computer graphics.
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