A Taiwanese virtual reality (VR) film won an award at an extended reality art festival in Paris, the festival’s organizers announced on Friday, with jurors praising it as a breakthrough in VR filmmaking.
Taiwanese VR film Red Tail Ep.1 (紅尾巴Ep.1) won the jury’s Special Mention Award at the fifth annual NewImages Festival, which ran from Tuesday last week to yesterday.
Red Tail Ep.1 is the first VR project helmed by Taiwanese animator Fish Wang (王登鈺), best known for his 2018 animated short Gold Fish (金魚), which won significant recognition including the Golden Horse Award for best short animation in 2019.
Alongside a strong production team to help build the movie’s VR world, it took Wang two years to create the film, an adventure story about a youth chasing a floating red tail in the sky to a fantasy city.
Jurors said that not only were the artistic aesthetic and fantastical ambience of the film mesmerizing, the way it was made was also a major breakthrough in VR filmmaking.
Juror Priscila Guedes said the film was given the special mention award because the jury agreed that they all saw a lot of potential in the project.
While there are technical limitations and challenging artistic choices that come with VR filmmaking, the jurors saw more possibilities for the genre after being captivated by the artistry and story of Red Tail, she said.
Speaking from Taiwan, Wang said he was grateful for the efforts of his technical team, which helped him make his first VR film, and that the honor truly belonged to his whole crew.
He also revealed that the full version of Red Tail was completed last week, and that he looked forward to premiering the project at the upcoming 22nd Kaohsiung Film Festival in October, as well as potentially entering it in the Venice Film Festival in September.
Wang’s win marks the second time that a Taiwanese submission was recognized at the NewImages Festival, after Bodyless (失身記2.0), a film by Taiwanese new media artist Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健), won the Masque d’or (Golden Mask) Grand Prize in 2020.
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
City buses in Taipei and New Taipei City, as well as the Taipei MRT, would on Saturday begin accepting QR code payments from five electronic payment providers, the Taipei Department of Transportation said yesterday. The new option would allow passengers to use the “transportation QR code” feature from EasyWallet, iPass Money, iCash Pay, Jkopay or PXPay Plus. Passengers should open their preferred electronic payment app, select the “transportation code” — not the regular payment code — unlock it, and scan the code at ticket readers or gates, General Planning Division Director-General Liu Kuo-chu (劉國著) said. People should move through the
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) today released images of the military tracking China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) movements during the latest round of Chinese drills around Taiwan. The PLA began "Justice Mission 2025" drills today, carrying out live-fire drills, simulated strikes on land and maritime targets, and exercises to blockade the nation's main ports. The exercises are to continue tomorrow, with the PLA announcing sea and air space restrictions for five zones around Taiwan for 10 hours starting from 8:30am. The ministry today released images showing a Chinese J-16 fighter jet tracked by a F-16V Block 20 jet and the
RSS