Taichung International Animation Festival today (9th) has announced the 4th wave of demonstration film list with the fabulous artworks by the senior directors and new talents, including the Japanese animation movie《Penguin Highway》by the new talent, Hiroyasu Ishida, will have the premiere in Taiwan. And the film《Mutafukaz》under the collaboration between a French animation studio and the senior animation director, Shoujirou Nishimi, is revised and edited from the comic book,《Mutafukaz》. Meanwhile, the topics of「New Female Wave」and「Desire, Sexuality & Animation」are planned to allow the people to have the opportunity to watch the artworks of the new talents in addition to some classical animation films so they will enjoy the plentiful experiences of watching movies.

The in-charge person of Taichung Film Development Foundation said, Hiroyasu Ishida is introducing his first movie《Penguin Highway》 which has won the Kon Satosh award in Fantastic International Film Festival in Canada. This film is revised and edited from the bestselling novel written by the Japanese writer, Tomihiko Morimi, with the dubs of popular Japanese stars such as Yu Aoi, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Naoto Takenaka and famous voice actors, including Mamiko Noto and Rie Kugimiya. Hikaru Utada is singing the theme song of the movie. The story of the film is talking about a group of penguins from Southern Pole but suddenly appear in Japan; the leading role has initiated a 「Penguin Highway research project」to resolve the puzzle. It’s based on a fantastic, gorgeous and fictional story.

《Mutafukaz》, a collaboration between a French animation studio and the senior animation director, Shoujirou Nishimi, is describing the leading role has the life changed due to a car accident and a series of crazy adventures started with very decadent and science fiction styles of picturing. The film has won the recognition of the teenager judge award in the Gérard de Nerval film festival in France.

The representative of Taichung Film Development Foundation pointed out, Taichung International Animation Festival of this year has especially planned the topic as「Talents in Focus: New Female Wave」and「Special Program: Desire, Sexuality & Animation」to focus on the new international talented women directors and classical desire, sexuality and animations. In the 「New Female Wave」, there are some artworks of three international rising star directors with unique individual styles, including the「Time Trilogy」by Korean director Dehee Jeong, the「Family Trilogy」by Eva Cvijanović, a Bosnian filmmaker currently based in Canada and the 「Love Quartet」 by Slovenian animator Špela Čadež. These very special but different stylish short films allow the people to have the opportunity to watch these films in very diverse styles.

As to「Special Program: Desire, Sexuality & Animation」, Jayne Pilling, who is the ex-director of UK animation award, is invited to be our guest programmer. Jayne Pilling hopes to leverage the opportunity of the event to give the audience a different angle to see how sexuality and desire are expressed in animation. 8 very distinct short films have been selected to be rolled out to let the audience enjoy all of them due the festival.

2018 Taichung International Animation Festival will be held from 11th October to 16th October at the S2 of ShowTime movie theater in front of the Taichung Station and Taichung Kbro Cinema. From 12 o’clock at noon of 21st September, the ibon machines all over Taiwan and the official website will start to sell tickets and reservations. At the night of 22nd September, the open seminar of how the films selected at the Liuchuan blue shore and the movie《On the way to happiness》 will be broadcasted then. More detailed information for the film list and the related activities will be available at the official website of Taichung International Animation Festival and FACEBOOK fans page.