Taiwan pumps $228m into local film and co-productions

This will include programmes to support international co-productions and a closer working relationship with mainland China.

Taiwan is attracting an increasing number of co-productions, such as Monika Treut’s Ghosted and Arvin Chen’s First Page Taipei, executive produced by Wim Wenders, which have tapped into subsidies offered by the Government Information Office (GIO).

“Once the policy is in place, we aim to triple the amount of subsidy available for international co-productions,” said Frank JK Chen, director of the GIO’s Department of Motion Picture Affairs.

The GIO also aims to increase the number of co-productions between Taiwan and mainland China to ten a year. Next month, the government body is also inviting a delegation of mainland filmmakers to Taiwan, and will take Taiwanese directors to Beijing.

The moves follow an improvement in cross-straight relations since China’s KMT came to power last May.

The film initiatives are part of a $650m (NT$21.4bn) funding package for Taiwan’s content industries, the Cultural Creative Development Policy, announced last week, which also covers television, music and digital content.