A locally produced 3D animated short film featuring treasures from the National Palace Museum beat off competition from hundreds of other works from around the world at this year's Tokyo Anime Awards to grab the top prize, museum director Lin Mun-lee (林曼麗) said on Wednesday.
The film Adventures in the NPM, produced by the museum and Taipei-based Digimax Inc, will be awarded the prize on March 29 at the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2008, Lin said.
Lin described the 12-minute film that took more than a year to complete as the fruit of the museum's efforts through its "Old is New" program to promote the spirit of innovation.
Lin said the museum teamed up with some of the top names in the entertainment production industry, including Gerard Pires, director of the 1998 comedy blockbuster Taxi, Hollywood animation director Tom Sito and Taiwanese animation and digital content firm Digimax Inc, renowned for its dazzling 3D animation technology, to tell stories surrounding ancient artworks at the museum by using the latest computer animation techniques.
The three major characters in the film are personified animated depictions of some of the museum's most valuable artefacts -- a ceramic pillow, a jade amulet and a jade duck.
"They take part in an exciting story centered around the search for a cricket that has flown away from another museum treasure, the Jadeite cabbage," Lin said.
The film, Lin continued, is only the beginning of an ambitious project to make a 90-minute commercial animated film within the next three years to "tell our stories through manifestations of Taiwan's culture."
The annual Anime Fair is organized by the Tokyo City government and Japanese animation enterprises and organizations to encourage the development of the animation industry. It is one of the world's largest animation-themed exhibitions.
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