2021 Kaohsiung Film Festival (KFF) “International Short Film Competition” Finalists Announced

2021 Kaohsiung Film Festival (KFF) “International Short Film Competition” Finalists Announced
KFF teaming up with the National Human Rights Museum, encouraging short film creation on human rights issues

The 2021 Kaohsiung Film Festival announced its finalists for the International Short Film Competition today (Aug. 31st). This year, a total of 2,422 entries from 91 countries were submitted. After many days of intense discussion among the jury  81 films were selected for the “International,” “Taiwan” and “VR” sections to compete for 14 awards with a total prize pool of over NT$1.2 million. The winners of the “International Short Film Competition” will be announced on Oct. 24th.

KFF has been cultivating short film competitions and short film sections for years and is the third-largest short film competition in Asia after Tokyo International Short Film Festival and Busan International Short Film Festival. According to the preliminary jury, this year, due to the pandemic, the number of entries for feature films and documentaries was lower than in previous years, but the jury were amazed by the quality and quantity of animated shorts, which are more diverse and richer because they are not restricted by traditional filmmaking methods. The jury were also impressed by the creativity of the shorts that focus on the global concern for human rights and environmental issues.

As for the works of the students in Taiwan, they are also well recognized by the preliminary jury due to their excellent choices in terms of genre, topics, and creative perspectives. Oasis chronicles the journey of an overseas Chinese student from Malaysia Chin-sheng Chen, a victim of the White Terror, who came to Taiwan to study, but was framed by the Investigation Bureau and suffered 12 years of injustice. Today, he is a docent at the National Human Rights Museum, and through telling his story again and again, he embarks on a journey of forgiveness and letting go. My Grandma is an Egg uses an egg as a metaphor for the problem of child marriage in early Taiwan, revealing the situation of women in the old society. In the animation section, the world premiere film Bruise and Girl in the Water were also well received. Girl in the Water is a clever portrayal of a woman’s self-healing process after the loss of love by using a fallen wall mold, and its delicate style has already been recognized by three major international animation film festivals: Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Animafest Zagreb and Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film.

The Taiwan section’s narrative shorts are also spectacular this year in terms of creativity. The Golden Bell Award winner for Best Actor Mu-Yi Chen plays the role of a corpse who
turns his funeral scene into his farewell ceremony by accident in Life of Lai. World premieres Tank Fairy and THE Boy Q are unique among the Taiwanese competition short films with their magical and realistic style. The joyful tank fairy and the fierce and powerful political metaphors bring an abundance of human qualities into fairyland. My Sister, produced by Yu-Chieh Cheng and directed by Ke-Yin Pan, is a heart-warming family drama that depicts family bonding. Also a world premiere, Last Meal is the latest film by documentary filmmaker Arrow Peng, whose film portrays the issues of old age and homeless people in a narrative style. The lineup for the International Short Film section is also remarkably strong, with many award-winning and shortlisted films in the world’s top three film festivals, including I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face, the first Egyptian short film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival in 2020. A Love Song in Spanish and Motorcyclist’s Happiness Won’t Fit Into His Suit were both shortlisted for the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival. The Game, which was in the short film competition at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival. Grand Prize winner at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, You’re Dead Helen is a darkly humorous account of a man-ghost relationship that cannot be easily shaken off. The Departure, Friend, and Ateh, which depict the bittersweet feelings of teenagers facing separation and coming of age, were also unanimously praised by the preliminary jury.

Besides the International and Taiwan sections, based on the submission data since 2018, it appears that the pandemic has not hindered VR creation, but rather stimulated the expansion of immersive-creation. The widespread use of “ VR Live Performance ” has also given rise to the formation of the Metaverse, a virtual reality social technology that allows audiences and actors to meet in the world of VR and interact with each other in real-time, creating multiple possibilities of cross-temporal and cross-boundaries performances. The jury were astounded by the sophistication of this year’s submissions and the maturity of their creative approach. After days of heated debate, it was decided to increase the number of finalists to allow outstanding works to compete for the awards and open the eyes of the audience and creators.

In the VR section, 21 VR works were nominated , including two selected works from Taiwan: In the Mist by new media artist Tung-Yen Chou, which had a sell-out premiere at the 2020 KFF and was selected for a “Special Project in the Official Selection-Out of Competition” at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival; and LIMBOTOPIA in VR, a graduation project by Wen-Yee Hsieh and Co-Creator Chun-Lien Cheng at Feng Chia University and a KFF world premiere among other exceptional international films, which depicts a realm of souls being reborn after death. In addition, Replacement was awarded the VR Crystal Award at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, and Goliath: Playing with Reality along with Baba Yaga were two films not only recognized by the Venice International Film Festival but also brought together Tilda Swinton, Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley, Kate Winslet, Glenn Close and other top actors to do voice acting. The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite adopts multiplayer online experience as well as real-time cross-boundaries performance technology to transform the physical theater into an “online immersive interactive theater,” allowing the audience to enter the inner world of people with dissociative identity disorder .

The 2021 Kaohsiung Film Festival will run from Oct. 15- Oct. 31. With six new films premiering at the VR Film Lab, more exciting films will soon be announced. For more information, please visit the Kaohsiung Film Festival official website at https://www.kff.tw/TW and our Facebook Fan Page https://www.facebook.com/TaiwanKFF and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/khfilmfestival. 
 

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Official Selection Announcement of KFF International Short Film Competition
 

International Section
Title of the Film	Name of the Director	Country
A Little Bit Of Paradise	Andrzej CICHOCKI	Poland
A Love Song in Spanish	Ana Elena TEJERA	France, Panama
A Trip To There	NGAI Tsz Kwan, Tracey	Hong Kong
Ateh	Kristie KO	Hong Kong
Blue Lion	Zoia TROFIMOVA	France
Carrousel	Jasmine ELSEN	Belgium, Czech Rupublic
Coffin	Yuanqing CAI, Nathan CRABOT, Houzhi HUANG, Mikolaj JANIW, Mandimby LEBON, Theo NGOC TRAN	France
Errand	LEE Youngwoong	South Korea
Free Fall	Emmanuel TENENBAUM	France
Friend	Andrey Svetlov	Belarus, Russia
Georgia	Jayil PAK	South Korea, USA, Canada
Granny's Sexual Life	Urška DJUKIĆ, Émilie PIGEARD	Slovenia, France
I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face	Sameh ALAA	Egypt, France, Qatar, Belgium
Little Berlin	KATE McMULLEN	France
Louise From 9 to 5	Julien G. MARCOTTE	Canada
Maalbeek	Ismaël JOFFROY CHANDOUTIS	France
Mild Madness, Lasting Lunacy	Marine LACLOTTE	France
MOM	Kajika Aki FERRAZZINI	France
Motorcyclist’s Happiness Won’t Fit Into His Suit	Gabriel HERRERA	Mexico
Naya	Sebastian MULDER	Netherlands
Noir-Soleil	Marie LARRIVÉ	France
On Time	Zbigniew CZAPLA	Poland, Japan
Red Shoes	Anna PODSKALSKÁ	Czech Republic
Self Scratch	YANG Cheng-Hua	France
Shooting Star	Ariane LOUIS-SEIZE	Canada
Soon It Will Be Dark	Isabell HEIMERDINGER	Germany
Souvenir Souvenir	Bastien DUBOIS	France
Squish	Xavier SERON	Belgium
Store Policy	Sarah ARNOLD	France
The Departure	Saïd Hamich BENLARBI	France, Marroco
The Game	Roman HODEL	Switzerland
The Intronauta	Jose ARBOLEDA	Colombia
The Lamb of God	David PINHEIRO VICENTE	Portugal, France
The Martyr	Fernando POMARES	Spain
The World Within	Sandrine STOÏANOV, Jean-Charles FINCK	France
To Feather, to Wither	Hanna HOVITIE	Hungary, Belgium, Finland, Portugal
Too Big Drawing	Genadzi BUTO	Belarus, Russia
Tugging Diary	YAN Wai-Yin	Hong Kong
What Resonates in Silence	Marine BLIN	France
You’re Dead Helen	Michiel BLANCHART	France, Belgium

 

Taiwan Section
Title of the Film	Name of the Director	Country
An Unfinished Film	LIN Yi-Chiang	Taiwan
Bruise	HUANG Ping-An	Taiwan
Butterfly Jam	HUANG Shih-Yen	Taiwan, France
Girl in the Water	HUANG Shi-Rou	Taiwan
Homeless	DAI Wei	Taiwan
Invisible Children	LIU Chun-Yu	Taiwan
Jiang	HUANG Shi-Min	Taiwan
Last Meal	Arrow PENG	Taiwan
Life of Lai	HUANG Chi-Yung	Taiwan
Ms Lin：The Retouching Lady	LIN Shih-Chun	Taiwan
My Grandmother is an Egg	CHANG Wu-Ching	Taiwan, UK
My Sister	PAN Ke-Yin	Taiwan
Neko And Flies	TSAO Shih-Han	Taiwan
Oasis	CHANG Hao-Yuan	Taiwan
Solo Trekker	CHANG Jing-Ye	Taiwan
Tank Fairy	Erich RETTSTADT	Taiwan, USA
THE Boy Q	Adiong LU	Taiwan
The Poem of Pakistan	CHAN Hon-Yan	Taiwan, Hong Kong
Undercurrent	CHU Ping	Taiwan
Versus	CHANG Tzu-Hsiang、 DAI Wei	Taiwan

 

VR Section
Title of the Film	Name of the Director	Country
In the Land of the Flabby Schnook	Francis Gélinas	Canada
In the Mist	CHOU Tung-Yen	Taiwan
LIMBOTOPIA VR	Hsieh Wen-Yee	Taiwan
Noah's Raft	Joel Kachi Benson, Tal Haring	Nigeria
Recoding Entropia	François Vautier	France
Reeducated	Sam Wolson	USA, Kazakhstan
Replacements	Jonathan Hagard	Japan, Indonesia, Germany
Strands of Mind	Adrian Meyer	Germany
Baba Yaga	Eric Darnell	USA
Bystanding: The Feingold Syndrome	Nim Shapira,Roi LEV	Israel, Germany, Canada
GOLIATH: PLAYING WITH REALITY	Barry Gene Murphy, May Abdalla	UK, France
Hop Step Sing! VR Live《Hop Summer 2020》	ISHIMARU Kenji,CHIDA Hiroshi	Japan
Hush	Vibeke Bryld	Denmark
JAILBIRDS: Bwa Kayiman	Thomas Villepoux	Belgium, France
Madrid Noir	James A. Castillo	France, UK
Marco & Polo Go Round	Benjamin Steiger Levine	Canada, Belgium
Paper Birds	German Heller, Federico Carlini	Argentina
The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite	Lyndsie Scoggin	USA
The Hangman at Home - VR	Michelle Kranot, Uri Kranot	Denmark, Canada, France
The Passengers: The Kid	Ziad Touma	Canada, France
The Secret of Retropolis	Eyal Geva, Asaf GEVA	Israel

 

Children's Jury Award
Title of the Film	Name of the Director	Country
A Bite of Bone	Honami Yano	Japan
Bits	Áron Horváth Botka	Slovania
Blue Lion	Zoia Trofimova	France
City Penguin	Florinda Frisardi	Germany
Friend	Andrey Svetlov	Belarus, Russia
In Nature	Marcel Barelli	Switzerland
July 96	Michèle Jacob	Belgium
Matilda and the Spare Head	Ignas Meilūnas	Lithuanian