[New Taipei City]
The best films of the year of 2023 “New Taipei City Documentary Film Award” is going to be revealed today (29th). The New Taipei City Documentary Film Award sets no limitation on theme and region, hands the copyright back to the directors and provides both funding assistance and professional filming supervision. New Taipei City is actively aiming to become a documentary-friendly city and has been working toward this goal for 13 years. New Taipei City Documentary Film Award has also become a significant award for domestic documentaries. In order to encourage more filming production teams to bring their shooting plans to live, New Taipei City has raised the shooting fund to NT$350,000 per film this year and continued to cooperate with The Chi Po-lin Foundation to establish a specific price for recording the environment. The City wishes to see more creative production team to bring even more high-quality and heart-warming documentaries for the audience.
A total of 109 shooting proposals were received this year, 28 films were selected by a group of fair and professional judge panel in the first trial. A public proposal presentation was held in New Taipei City on April 27th, 28th and 29th for three consecutive days. The shortlisted teams will present their filming plans in front of the judges, other contestants and general audiences, conduct an onsite Q&A session with the panel to finalize the formation of their works together and get inspired to see more possibilities and creative sparks. The final 13 best film of the year will be selected and shooting will be complete in late September.
When attending press conference to reveal the best films of the year, Mayor Hou You-Yi pointed out that New Taipei City has been working hard to set up the city image of a “documentary-friendly city” and has discovered 111 talented directors and completed 120 excellent films. All these numbers are representation of all the years of hard works. These productions and creators have been showing great talents in other competitions, such as: Taipei Film Festival, Golden Harvest Awards, Golden Horse Awards, and many international documentary film festivals and contests, receiving great feedback and recognition. This definitely represents that New Taipei City Documentary Film Awards has reached a new milestone. Mayor Hou said, New Taipei City will actively expand various screening channels, hoping documentaries can get recognize in more places. He is also very happy to be able to continue the collaboration with the Chi Po-lin Foundation. The environmental issue of Taiwan is definitely something that all of us need to investigate continuous attention in. The mayor also hopes for a sustainable development of both Taiwan’s eco system and documentary.
The judge panel of this year’s public proposal presentation are all specially selected industry leaders, full of both professional knowledge and talent. Start with senior documentary directors and producers: Lin Jing-die, He Zhao-ti, Zhu Shi-qian; director of “Deep into River and Ocean,” “Border,” “A Record of People And Land”: Hong Chu-xiu; creator who specialized with both literature and film creation: Hou Ji-ran, Huang Jia-jun; senior director Shen Ke-shang, all work together as the judge panel of the public proposal. With many long-term experiences, these judges can provide diverse viewpoints and suggestions about documentary film-making. They can definitely provide practical suggestion and to-the-point analysis for the finalists. They will be great helps with planning, sculpting and polishing the proposals, so the creations can have the best presentation.
The director of the Department of Information of New Taipei City Government, Chang Ai Jing stated, New Taipei City will assist the selected best films to complete with follow-up shooting and editing. The award ceremony is expected to be held in late October and will announce the top three finalist of this years award winners on site. All the selected films will also be premiered during “New Taipei City International Documentary Month” as an introduction to the general public.
For more information, please visit the official website http://www.doc.ntpc.gov.tw.
