TIAF announce films selected for the category of “City Code”
From the creators of “Your Name”, “Flavors of Youth” shows the delicate Japanese aesthetics
Award-winning director of “Kirikou and the Sorceress” demonstrates his expert cutout skills in “Dilili in Paris”
The TIAF announce the second batch of films in the program this year. In City Code, through animations presented in different styles, the audiences could visit several big cities around the world. Set in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, Flavor of Youth is a collaboration between the production team of Your Name and Chinese directors. Years after Kirikou and the Sorceress, award-winning director Michel Ocelot presents a new cutout animation, Dilili in Paris, which feels like the French version of Pocahontas. Moreover, unmissable films such as Have a Nice Day (winner of Best Feature Animation at the Golden Horse Awards) and Tehran Taboo (selected for the International Critics’ Week at the Cannes) are included in the program.
Composed of three segments, Flavor of Youth is a rare collaboration between Japan and China. Li hao-ling directed one of the segments and also served as producer, and the other two segments are directed by Joshua Yi (who directed the popular online drama Surprise and appeared in Duckweed) and Yoshitaka Takeuchi (a long-term creative partner of Makoto Shinkai). Set in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, the seemingly serene and subtle style of the film exerts such strong emotional impact on the audiences just like 5 Centimeters per Second. The version screened at the 2018 TIAF is dubbed in Japanese and the Festival is working hard to invite the production team to meet the audience in Taiwan.
74-year-old French director Michel Ocelot still keeps making great films. Having won a BAFTA, a number of prizes at the César Awards and the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Ocelot is known for his expertise in cutout animation, and every frame in his work is so beautifully composed. After the highly acclaimed Kirikou and the Sorceress and Tales of the Night, Ocelot returns to cinema with Dilili in Paris, which describes the investigation carried by a young Kanak girl Dilili and her companions as they try to solve several mysterious abductions in Paris.
Have a Nice Day, which won Best Animation Feature at the 2017 Golden Horse Awards, is director Liu Jian's second feature. Furthermore, it was in competition at the 2017 Berlinale, the second Asian animation, which made the record after Spirited Away. The film tells the story of a young driver, who steals his gang boss's money to pay for his girlfriend's plastic surgery and the series of ridiculous incidents subsequently triggered by the theft. The production took Liu Jian three years to finish as he wrote it completely on his own. Through the almost realist elements combined with black humor similar to Quentin Tarantino's, Have a Nice Day vividly depicts how people are confused with values and the greedy distorted human nature prevalent in China today.
Selected for the International Critics' Week at the Cannes and the Annecy International Animated Film Festivals, Tehran Taboo adapts rotoscoping, live-action animation and 3D techniques to construct what is happening in the contemporary Iranian society. In addition to his daring challenge to the gender discrimination and moral taboos, director Ali Soozandeh faithfully shows how women, despite that they are constrained by social conventions, keep fighting for freedom and demonstrating their strength.
On top of the masters' works and award-winning features, City Code includes many short films, which were invited and won awards at film festivals around the world, and they are Lost Property Office, which was nominated for Best Short Film (animated) at the Academy Awards, Home: A Portrait of New York City and Brooklyn Breeze, both of which were selected for the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; all three will have their Asian premieres at the 2018 TIAF. Other films include Forever, which is a satire on the authoritarian regime, The Scars of My City, which depicts the rapid changes taking place in Macau, The Last Job on Earth, which feels like a doomsday prophecy and Gokurōsama, an ironic comedy set in a shopping center in Japan. Many of these films have never been shown in Taiwan, and if one would like to see them in the cinema, one should never miss the screenings at the 2018 TIAF.
The 2018 TIAF is held between October 11th (Thursday) and 16th (Tuesday) at Taichung Showtime Cinemas S2 and Kbro Cinemas in Taichung. The tickets will go on sale at 12.00 pm on September 21st (Friday) on ibon machines nationwide and seats can be reserved online; the full price is NT$ 160 per ticket and a special offer of NT$ 80 is on each advance ticket. For more information on the program and events, please visit the TIAF official website (twtiaf.com) and Facebook fan page (facebook.com/tiaf.taichung).
