Warming up for October’s “2018 Taichung International Animation Film Festival”, the 7/6-8/25 “2018 Taichung Film Festival-Animation” by Taichung Information Bureau, as a symbol of culture equality, is playing animations every weekend throughout 29 districts. The Festival will be opened by Coco, the Oscar & Golden Globe winning film. Deputy Mayor Lin Yi-ying invited everyone to join the fantasy world.

Today on the press conference the Cosers dressed as the main characters of “Baryons” for the opening of “2018 Taichung Int’l Animation Festival”. The event, under the announcement by Deputy Mayor Lin Yi-ying, Director Secretary of Information Bureau Lin Shang-xian, CEO of TFDF Lin Ying-zhi, Director of Taiwanese animation “Baryons” Huang Ying-zhou, and Professor of Tunghai University Shi Qi-ting, officially started.

Summer is the high time of animation films for kids, indicated Mayor Lin. This year from July 6 to August 25, each of the 29 Taichung districts will be playing animations throughout. Opening film “Coco”, Taiwanese Films “Barkley” and “On Happiness Road” will be on the movie list, featuring lucky draws at opening and closing of the festival.

This year “Baryons”, the Taiwanese robot animation, is chosen as the opening film for “2018 Taichung Int’l Animation Festival” and the visual focus. Mayor sees the importance of ACG industry and has supported the making of “Baryons” movie. Mayor Lin also promotes the Fourth Market as the base for animation, comics and illustrations, allowing young people to speak through the platform.

Huang Ying-zhou, the Director of Baryons, shared the story of profound relationships with Taichung City. Two years ago when Huang raised funds online, the support from Mayor Lin’s Facebook directed the Baryons to the media, and collected the first public funds, as the highest public fund achieving rate under animation category. Therefore most of the scenes of the movie took place in Taichung as a gesture to thank the support from the city. Selected as the opening film for “2018 Taichung Int’l Animation Festival”, the movie will be in front of the public for the first time ever, promoting animation (comics) development in Taichung, a city friendly to the industry.

Great help received from the city government in developing animation (comics), such as annual assistant fund, and broadcast channel exploration. Like many other audio-visual industry, the animation needs more channels to expose to the public. In addition to theaters, now the public get to watch it in their own districts, which will do benefits to the development of the industry.

“2018 Taichung Int’l Film Festival-Animation” will be playing animation films from Taiwan, Japan, Europe and US in 29 districts, one session each. “Coco”, the Oscar and Golden Globe winning animated feature film, will be the opening film, and “On Happiness Road”, the critically acclaimed Taiwanese animated film, will be the closing film. The movie list features 16 animated films including “Your Name” by Shinkai Makoto, “In This Corner of the World”, “The Boss Baby”, “Ferdinand”, and “Despicable Me 3”, as per Information Bureau. Giveaways, such as movie tickets, tablet PC, and lucky draws, are prepared to draw public’s attention.