Kaohsiung's answer to the Taipei Film Festival

Positioning itself as the southern counterpart of the Taipei Film Festival (台北電影節), the 2006 Kaohsiung Film Festival (KFF) is slated to open tomorrow with nine-days of screenings that will show 50 feature, documentary and short films from Taiwan, the US and other Asian and European countries.

Beginning only one week before the Taipei Film Festival opens its doors, KFF, has followed closely the direction of its northern equivalent with an ambitious agenda, that is, to become a central platform to showcase works by local filmmakers and foster exchanges between domestic and international movers and shakers in the film industry.

However, with a smaller base of art-house moviegoers in Kaohsiung, KFF organizers know that a lot of work still needs to be done to raise the profile of non-mainstream movies.

"Unlike Taipei where the Golden Horse International Film Festival (金馬國際影展) has built up a solid audience base for art-house movies over the years, Kaohsiung is still in its nascent phrase in this regard," KFF president Cheng Wen-tang (鄭文堂) said. "Even though our festival is in its sixth year, we still have a long way to go in fostering the audiences' interests and viewing habits for non-mainstream films."

To carry out this task, KFF has this year selected three award-winning Asian films from last year's Festival des 3 Continents (F3C) in France, an important channel that introduces the work of young Asian, African and Latin American directors to Europe.

Seventeen highlights from South Korea's Pusan International Film Festival have also been included on KFF's program.

For Cheng, the most important mission of the annual film festival is to take Taiwanese films out of Taipei and expose audiences in the south to local productions.

"Taipei Film Festival has established a model in which young local directors can gain more visibility, and I think KFF should gradually steer in that direction. If more and more Taiwanese directors can be discovered through KFF, then it's safe to say that our festival fulfills its duty," Cheng said.

Both the programs on Asian and Taiwanese directors feature up-and-coming local filmmakers and includes commercial flicks such as Catch (國士無雙), Chocolate Rap (巧克力重擊) and The Shoe Fairy (人魚朵朵) and art-house productions such as Cannes winner Respire (呼吸), Venice winner Small Station (小站) and a lineup of short films made by local young filmmakers over the past year.

The highlight among the troop of local productions is 34-year-old director Yao Hung-i's (姚宏易) first feature film Reflections (愛麗絲的鏡子). An experienced cinematographer, Yao's debut has won him the young director's award at F3C and the best cinematography award at the Argentina International Film Festival and has continued its film festival tour in German, Spain, Rome and Amsterdam.

Working from the bottom up as part of film master Hou Hsiao-hsien's (侯孝賢) team for 11 years, Yao may well be regarded as one of the lucky few to have won Hou's endorsement and support for his first movie.

Focusing on the relationship between a young lesbian couple and a man, Yao said he doesn't think of his work as a gay movie but a colorful look at the anomic life and spirit of contemporary Taipei, a theme that echoes in the third story of Hou's Three Times (最好的時光) and Millennium Mambo (千禧曼波) made in 2001.