Department of Information and Tourism, Taipei City Government

Hosted by the Department of Cultural Affairs of Taipei City Government, the Taipei Film Festival (TFF) is an annual cinematic and cultural event that first made its impact in 1998. Since its inception, the festival has become one of the most important and high profile international events in Taiwan. The main objective of the Taipei Film Festival is to encourage and support independent local film production. To achieve this, three main awards were established: the Taipei Grand Award, the Taipei Image Award, and the New Talent Competition. In creating the festival, the city hopes to put Taipei on the map of international cinema and make it one of the major destinations for young filmmakers. In addition to encouraging non-mainstream movie-making, a major part of each year's festival is the “City-Vision" section which spotlights two specific cities in the world and screens classic and current films from these places. This section also allows Taiwanese moviegoers an opportunity to glimpse at the unique cinematic creations of these competing cultures and cities. In the past, directors from places such as Paris, Prague (2002), Kyoto, Melbourne (2003), Madrid, Barcelona (2004), Moscow, St. Petersburg (2005), have entertained the residents of Taipei. Films from these locales have deeply affected the audience and opened a new perspective to viewers. This year, the 8th Taipei Film Festival will focus on Toronto and Montreal of Canada. Another aspect of Taipei Film Festival is to support student filmmakers. The International Student Film Festival invites commercially and critically successful student productions from a number of major international film festivals and countries to participate. This segment of TFF gives the major film directors of tomorrow an opportunity to display their creative style and introduce the movie-going audience to these future stars. This year, a hundred and ten films from around the world will be screened at the festival. In addition, some of the classic movies directed by such prominent directors as David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Denys Arcand and Robert Lepage will be shown. There will also be several young directors from various parts of the world that will bring new enthusiasm to the city. The 8th Taipei Film Festival invites you to come enjoy the excitement of going to the movies. This year the festival will be held from June 24th ~ July 9th. Four venues have been allocated for this festival: Zhongshan Hall, Taipei Metropolitan Hall, ShinKong Cineplex and in89 Digital Cinema. Both the opening ceremony on June 24th and closing ceremony on July 9th will be held at Zhongshan Hall.