Program Director

 

Every animated film has a pulse of its own. It may surface in the pause of a character’ s breath, shift with sound, or slowly emerge through the interplay of material, light, and movement. Audiences may not immediately grasp a film’ s meaning, yet at a certain moment they often sense its mood, pace, and temperature. Under the curatorial theme “VIBE, Pulse,” the 12th Taichung International Animation Festival explores how animation reaches beyond the screen to engage the senses and shape the viewing experience. It also brings together different generations, regions, and creative approaches, opening up new ways of seeing animation.

This year’ s festival opens with “Isle Navigator” and the 4K digital restoration of “Ghost in the Shell,” bringing contemporary Taiwanese animation and a science-fiction classic together on the big screen. Created by six Taiwanese animation teams, “Isle Navigator” comprises seven stylistically distinct shorts that draw on island landscapes, cultural memory, and folk imagination to retell Taiwan’ s fantastical stories. More than three decades after its original release, “Ghost in the Shell” returns to the screen,inviting renewed reflection on the body, technology, and the future. Its producer, Mitsuhisa ISHIKAWA, will also visit Taiwan during the festival to revisit several landmark works he helped create and trace their journey from conception and production to a lasting place in audience memory. The closing film, “Lucy Lost,” follows a young girl searching for the source of her mysterious powers on a journey through imagination, friendship, and self-discovery.

Both focus programmes place sensory experience at their core. Through 2D hand-drawn animation, Yoriko MIZUSHIRI magnifies touch, weight, temperature, and pauses, allowing subtle shifts to emerge from the softness of everyday life. Clyde Henry Productions, founded by Chris LAVIS and Maciek SZCZERBOWSKI, uses puppetry, miniature sets, and cinematic lighting to weave absurdity, humour, and the complexities of human nature into grotesque fables. Though working in different media, both build rhythm, texture, and emotion through subtle movements and material transformations. Yoriko MIZUSHIRI and Chris LAVIS will also visit Taiwan to share their creative practices and perspectives.

The two‘New Angles’programmes offer distinct perspectives: one reconsiders animation through sound, while the other examines humanity through animation.‘Sonic Pulses—Seeing Animation Anew Through Sound’ places sound at the heart of the viewing experience, exploring how voices, music, language, and experimental sound reshape rhythm, space, and narrative. Guest-curated by Alexandre HUANG , ‘Glimmers of Humanity in Animation’ explores war, refugee experiences, colonialism, ecology, and everyday life, revealing the contradictions and choices that surface in a changing world while seeking possibilities for mutual understanding. ‘Spotlight on Taiwan: The Next Frame—New Voices in Animation’ presents works appearing at TIAF for the first time, showing how emerging creators transform everyday emotions, coming-of-age experiences, and the imaginative possibilities of genre into animated expression. ‘Baby Universe: The Ear Goes Adventuring’ invites children into animation through listening and imagination. The festival will also present recent selections and award-winning works from the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, while welcoming representatives from both festivals and GOBELINS Paris to engage with Taiwan’ s animation industry and academic communities.

VIBE is both the atmosphere a work leaves behind and a creator’ s way of facing the world. It lives not only in fast and forceful beats, but also in a pause, a silence, a touch, or a glance whose meaning remains unspoken. We hope that, among this year’ s films and events, every audience member will encounter a work that stays with them and continues to resonate long after they leave the cinema.