TAIPEI (Taiwan News) - A three-year-old international animation festival in central Taiwan is set to open to culturally- and geographically-diversified animation artists this year in a competition to justify itself as an international event while helping the local animation industry to flourish through more exchanges.

Established in 2015, Taichung International Animation Festival (TIAF) is the first event of its kind in Taiwan featuring animation. This year, the festival has expanded its pool by calling for entries from all over the world and has added two brand new categories to the competition – International Short Films, and Student Short Films.

The event is funded by the Taichung City Government and organized by the Taichung Film Development Foundation. The two new categories are created to involve more animation talent from around the world to compete and to exchange ideas with local animation artists.

The animation festival has been touted as a precursor to winning locally- and internationally-acclaimed animation awards.

Complaints about Taiwan’s shortage of original animation projects have been around for years and many in the industry attributed the plight to insufficient funding for the time-consuming animation projects, migration of talent and a shortage of skilled animation artists needed for the industry. Experts show support for the animation festivals and competitions held in the country, saying they can direct more attention to the animation industry and boost growth.

Ten awards will be handed out this year, with a grand prize of up to NT$500,000 (US$16,010) and the total prize money amounting to NT$1.3 million. The submission deadline for application is June 30, 2017. Only online applications are accepted for the sake of environment. The preliminary results will be announced on the website a month later. Visit TIAF website for more.