Taiwan Today

Creative cultural content is fueling Taiwan’s soft power.
 

Since its inception in 2018, Series Mania in Lille, France, has quickly become the largest and most influential European event dedicated to TV shows. Last August festivalgoers were in for a rare treat as the first two episodes of the drama “The Amazing Grace of Σ” produced by Taipei City-based Rosebud Production Co. premiered there, a tangible result of Ministry of Culture (MOC)-overseen Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA). The cultural and creative content (CCC) industry is a vital part of contemporary commerce and lies at the heart of soft power, shaping the country’s national brand and boosting awareness of it among overseas audiences. TAICCA’s mission is to nurture this sphere where individual and group innovation is applied to products from film to music and books.
 

In 2019, TAICCA was set up with funding from the Executive Yuan’s National Development Fund to systematically cultivate and disseminate cultural content. In the past, ad hoc government contributions  focused mostly on offering financial assistance to individual production companies. “While good work is the basis, a good business model is vital to a sustainable industry,” said TAICCA Chief Executive Officer Izero Lee (李明哲). “From initial concept to full-scale production, the process requires a continuous injection of finance and personnel both at home and abroad. We play the role of guardian angel to local creative content players to improve their overall business environment.”
 

Works exploring themes within a dynamic democracy resonate in international markets, according to Lee. “TAICCA develops overseas markets by wooing buyers in countries and regions like Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and the U.S. with targeted campaigns that give them a better understanding of Taiwan’s creative content,” Lee said. “We also find interested partners and develop potential for cooperative or tailored products,” he added. International collaborative projects can seek funding from TAICCA when a proportion of production elements such as main cast, main crew, language, shooting location, postproduction or story are connected to Taiwan.

Liberal Outlook

In addition to setting up the Taiwan Pavilion to showcase new titles at Series Mania and other major international film and media events, TAICCA has formed a partnership with Series Mania’s business networking mechanism to raise awareness of co-production incentives. Also featuring in the official selection at Series Mania 2021 were Taiwan TV serials “Who Killed the Good Man?” and “Fragrance of the First Flower,” respectively reflecting on the pressure cooker of urban life and portraying a female same-sex relationship. These made up a groundbreaking international presence for Taiwan dramas, which although already very successful in Asia, were not previously well known in Europe. Wu Lo-ying (吳洛纓), screenwriter and co-director of “The Amazing Grace of Σ,” lauds TAICCA’s proactive decision to explore beyond Asian markets. 
 

Wu, who currently heads Taipei-based Taiwan Screenwriters Association comprising around 200 film and TV show scriptwriters, pinpoints Taiwan’s freedom of speech as a huge advantage that catapults it to top place as a liberal creative hub in Asia, particularly among Sinitic language countries. In Taiwan, authors and creators deal with all kinds of political and social topics such as the wealth gap, homelessness and the environment with zero government interference, Wu said. “These issues are common to urban life all around the world,” she added. “They touch viewers in Taipei and New York alike.” 
 

Local stories with global resonance are finding fresh audiences through new production and distribution models such as online streaming services. Unlike traditional Taiwan TV soap serials that often run for hundreds of installments, Wu’s mystery thriller has just 12 episodes and high production values. Centered on a pop star who falls in with a religious group, it is more typical of its Japanese, Korean or Western counterparts. The series has completed postproduction and is ready for broadcast on international TV channels and streaming on internet platforms, with the film division of South Korea’s CJ Group handling worldwide distribution. “Audiences can access it on platforms like Netflix, not just in Taiwan, but across the world,” Wu said. 

Halcyon Days

Taiwan film and video are currently undergoing something of a golden age, as summed up by Wu’s pronouncement on the Lille festival. “The best way to promote our work is to flag up that we come from Taiwan because it’s a trending source of content,” she said. Wu recalls that there was a time when a large proportion of local film personnel worked in China’s huge entertainment sector, slowing down domestic capacity for innovation. Spurred by tightening control of the CCC industry in China during the mid-2010s, many Taiwan video production workers moved back home. “It’s a stroke of luck that the industry has avoided being locked into China’s market as there’s a much wider, censorship-free world to explore,” Wu said. 
 

TAICCA’s Lee also welcomes the returning staff and financial capital freed up from China, and he is especially excited about the potential of Taiwan’s information and communication technology (ICT) sphere to extend into the CCC sector. “Consumption and viewing patterns are changing with the rise of new media tools and rapidly developing ICT infrastructure,” he said. Among other TAICCA-supported projects are immersive experiences with virtual reality (VR) made by local artists such as Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健‬). “Creating movies only happens after concerted effort and expenditure on personnel and materials, which uses up vast amounts of resources,” Huang said. He believes that VR products are the entertainment choice for the digital age, as they pan out in virtual space and leave no physical waste.

Virtually There

After a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Taipei-based National Taiwan University, Huang pursued further study in industrial design in the U.S. and now teaches in the Department of Design at National Taiwan Normal University in the capital. Huang helped found the Taipei-based Virtual and Physical Media Integration Association of Taiwan (VPAT) comprising multimedia artists, educators and academics as well as soft- and hardware providers. Among other facets, VPAT fosters R&D in virtual and physical media integration, VR, augmented reality, extended reality (XR), metaverse, real-time computer graphics and digital twins. The resulting content appears in events, such as the theme lantern at the 2022 Taiwan Lantern Festival in the southern city of Kaohsiung, exhibitions, performances and movie productions. VPAT also strives to give workshops on project-based interdisciplinary integration at high schools and universities across the country to draw the younger generation into the industry.
 

Huang’s most recent production “Samsara” follows a group of humans on their journey to seek a new planet. The short movie won virtual cinema prizes last year from the U.S. state of Texas-based South by Southwest Film Festival and the Marche du Film’s Cannes XR Program in France. The latter runs at the same time as the more famous Cannes Film Festival since XR is still in its infancy and connections to the traditional film industry are seen as vital to its growth. TAICCA’s foresight in proactively nurturing VR CCC has resulted in a record number of works being selected for the 2022 New Images Festival, the main global event for XR professionals and France’s largest such event, with 8,000 visitors over five days in the heart of Paris. Four Taiwan XR works were selected for competition, with three more chosen for the XR Development Market event that seeks to match entrants with finance and co-production opportunities. 
 

Through receiving financial, technical and promotional support from TAICCA and the MOC, CCC spanning movies, animation, comics, games and books is weaving a distinctive brand identity for Taiwan. “Integrating resources across the public and private sectors is refining the overall image of our country,” Lee said. By promoting Taiwan CCC at overseas marketing events and facilitating international co-productions, TAICCA is realizing a sustainable business model firmly rooted at home while relevant abroad. “The soft power of creative content is one of the most effective ways to promote Taiwan’s cultural brand,” Lee said.

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw