Ivan C. Shih's ambitious 3D animation fantasy project The Adventures Of Dragon Fruit took the main prize at the second Taiwan Film & TV Project Promotion (TFTPP) event in Taipei yesterday.

The presentations were a major component of the 4th Taipei International TV, Film and Digital Contents Exhibition, held Nov 23-25.

The Adventures Of Dragon Fruit was among 17 projects competing for the $30,000 top prize. The event is modeled on project markets such as Pusan's PPP and Rotterdam's Cinemart to assist films and television series at different stages of development to secure finances from investors. Tsao Jui-yuan won a $10,000 runner-up prize for Australian-set Far End Of The Heaven.

The 17 projects - down from last year's 21 - were selected from 44 submissions. While television projects were entered, none made the shortlist. Several of the films have appeared at other project markets: Butterfly and The Dark Side Of The Moon were in Pusan's PPP; A Letter To Brigitte Lin in last month's Tokyo Project Gathering.

Suggesting the difficulties organisers had in securing projects, one finalist - Lin Yu-hsien's completed Exit No. 6 - was also shortlisted in last year's selection. The filmmakers behind another, Guge Tattoo, stressed that the director they had named, John Woo, was not officially attached to their $50m project that also potentially stars John Travolta as a forensic scientist.

While last year's inaugural event was attended by Asian film industry heavyweights, the audience at this year's two-day event was primarily composed of the directors and producers of the competing projects and the seven-member jury. Jury included producer Peggy Chiao, director Yee Chih-yen and Cannes programmer Jeremy Segay.

Exhibitors at this year's Taipei International TV, Film and Digital Contents Exhibition were composed of 14 local television producers, 5 equipment suppliers, 4 animation companies and 37 foreign organisations. 20 local film companies were represented on a stand hosted by the Chinese Taipei Film Archive but did not exhibit.

By the third day, most foreign exhibitors had already closed down their stands. Event was quiet, on a similar scale to the Bangkok Film Market (BFM) held in January. Like BFM, deals were confined primarily to South East Asian territories. According to official figures, 1144 visitors attended in addition to 258 buyers.

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