Sales of tickets to the Taipei Film Festival, which was postponed from June to late September due to COVID-19, will begin at noon Monday, according to the organizers.
Despite the rescheduling, the festival plans to showcase local films and trends in the industry over the past two years, with several movies set to have their premiere in Taiwan during the festival, said Li Ya-mei (???), director of the annual event, in a statement Sunday.
The Taiwanese movies set to make their debut include the opening film “Till We Meet Again” (??) by writer-director Giddens Ko (???) on Sept. 23 and the closing film “Treat or Trick” (??) by first-time film director Hsu Fu-hsiang (???) on Oct. 7, according to Li.
On Sunday, the festival unveiled another film that will have its world premiere — “Grit” (??) — directed by Chen Ta-pu (???).
Chen’s film tells the story about “a youngster trying to reintegrate back into society,” and features actor Kai Ko (???) and two Golden Horse Award winners — Angelica Lee (???) and Lee Kang-sheng (???), the organizers said.
The festival will also host the world premiere of director Tsai Ming-liang’s (???) “The Moon and the Tree” (???), a 34-minute short focusing on the respective lives of veteran singer Lee Pei-jing (???) and actor Chang Feng (??), the organizers said.
The foreign filmmakers in focus this year are Karim Aïnouz of Brazil and Radu Jude of Romania, according to the festival.
Among the several movies by the two filmmakers that will be shown are Jude’s “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” which won the Golden Bear award at Berlinale 2021, and Aïnouz’s 2020 work “Nardjes A.”
The organizers will also highlight 12 films competing in its International New Talent Competition for the Grand Prize of NT$600,000 (US$21,659), including “Days Before the Millennium” (????) by Taiwanese filmmaker Chang Teng-yuan (???) and “Celts” by Serbian Milica Tomovic.
The winner of the competition will be announced Sept. 28.
On Oct. 9, the festival will conclude with an awards ceremony, during which acting and technical awards will be handed out, while 20 Taiwanese movies, including feature films, documentaries, shorts and animated films will compete for the top prize of NT$1 million.
Tickets for the movies to be shown during the festival will be sold through the OpenTix ticketing service, and the organizers said changes to the program are possible if there are changes with the current COVID-19 restrictions.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel