Taipei City Government

Taipei Film Festival (TFF) will be celebrating its 20th year anniversary in 2018. Through exhibition and publication, the movie showcase will trace the developments of the past twenty years to contextualize the changes going back to the social and historical roots at the festival's inception. By reflecting on the festival, along with the observations from past participants, we seek to understand how different decisions have evolved, not only pertaining to the festival itself, but also to development of Taiwanese films and broader cultural policies – even the position of Taiwan as a participant in world cinema.
All of these recollections and traces help us better understand and respond to the anticipation felt by the supporters of all our film festivals over the years, and to allow us to remain an energetic, innovative and daring as a festival with a perspective.
For this year's program, we have extended our strands to dig deeper, and through the planning of topics, film selection and relevant talks, to put forth our thoughts and instincts. Several key elements we have continued to implement include the “In Progress” strand, focusing on the cutting-edge technological developments in Virtual Reality for 2018. We continue our focus on Southeast Asia and selected 29 short films to introduce top new directors from the region. Under the Asian Prism banner, we extend our interest to the developmental model of commercial cinema, highlighting the unique Thai production company GDH 559 as a case study to reflect on how even a small studio can triumph.
Following last year's popular feedback to the Exploring Film School program, we have turned our attention to La Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. Through the short films by their alumni, we explore how the university's dual focus on humanitarian content and practical and technical production, allied to a strong industry connection, have cultivated new talents not only from within Argentina, but across Latin America as well.
We have also developed two new programs. "Forward Taiwan", in the non-competitive section, showcases independent Taiwanese short films and documentaries to encourage new possibilities for Taiwanese cinema. As we turn 20, these films are at the threshold of filmmaking going forward. "Reality Bites" is a section of non-fiction films showing what may broadly be known as documentary, but with a more deliberately authorial, cinematic approach, extending the discussion and imaginative interpretation of film form and aesthetics.
We don't believe we've reached adulthood just because we've reached twenty, since the cinematic world continues to expand and keep us young. We seek to retain the restlessness of youth. Therefore, we continue to hold our curiosity and desire for new possibilities in cinema, hoping that audience, participants and filmmakers who have been with Taipei Film Festival throughout or during these dynamic twenty years will continue to enjoy the unknown journey into the future.

2018 20th Taipei Film Festival