Program Director

Taichung International Animation Festival (TIAF) has entered its ninth year. In contrast to the Anime Japan and Seoul International Comics and Animation Festival’s (SICAF) more commercially integrated approach, TIAF focuses more on discovering varying methods and forms of interpretation of the animated arts. Taichung’s ostensible effort in nurturing the public’s art appreciation these last few years attracted people interested in the animated arts from all over the country, helping
boost the city’s international notability.

The festival’s theme for the year is “Between Light and Shadow,” featuring programs “A Thousand Faces of Love in Animations” and “The Types of Fears in Animations.” One highlights the dazzling ferocity of love, and the other the many facets between melancholy and horror.

This year, for one of the Director in Focus programs, the festival has invited the renowned King of Independent Animation, Bill Plympton, who has had over 40 years of experience and produced over ten short films and eight feature films. The festival will be screening his latest feature film and a collection of short films at the venue. His iconic and unique alternative, underground style, and twisted humor present in every work will shock and amaze you. We have also invited Studio 4 ° C, a company in a class of its own in the Japanese animation industry, to share a collection of their classic Japanese cyberpunk works.

We are delighted to have “LUDA” as our opening film this year. Produced by Director Vick WANG from Engine Studio, set in a world of traditional Taiwanese monsters about a girl’s coming-of-age adventure story, it has been one of the most anticipated local animated feature films in recent years. For the closing film, we are also thrilled to be able to share “PHOENIX: Reminiscence of Flower,” adapted from the legendary Japanese manga master Tezuka Osamu’s classic manga series “Phoenix.” Produced by Studio 4 ° C, it tells the story of a girl’s journey from moving to a different planet to becoming the queen of said planet. Other feature programs of the festival will consist of animated movies from all over the world, including “The Black Pharaoh, the Savage, and the Princess,” completed in 2022 by internationally renowned French director Michel Ocelet, and “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman,” adapted from Haruki Murakami’s novel. From this, we may observe a variety of cultural expressions and methods of description.

We have specially invited the Professor HSIEH Pei-Wen, who has extensive experience in animation education and curating, as Guest Programmer for this year’s short films category to bring focus on the discussion on the relationship between animated imagery and sounds. Furthermore, following our experience, we have exchanged films with Japan’s Hiroshima Animation Season and received some outstanding Japanese animated short films from recent years to screen at our festival. For this year’s forums, we have invited last year’s Short Films Grand Prix winner Hugo Covarrubias and Taiwanese Short Films Grand Prix winner YU Yu to discuss building world views in stop-motion animation and some dialogue forums between competition nominees and local animation creators.

A big thank you for the support of the Taichung City Government, Taichung Film Development Foundation, and the hard work of Guest Programmers, Juries, and Executive Team for making this event possible!

Program Director  CHANG Yen-Jung