Taiwanese VR film "Red Tail Ep.1 (紅尾巴Ep.1)" won the jury's "Special Mention Award" at the 5th edition of the annual NewImages Festival, a leading French festival of digital creation and virtual worlds, which was held from June 7 to 12.
"Red Tail Ep.1" is the first VR animation of Taiwanese animator Fish Wang (王登鈺), who previously won the Golden Horse Award for his animated short "Gold Fish (金魚)" in 2019. Alongside a strong production team to help build the movie's VR world, Wang took two years to create the film which revolved around an adventure story about a youth chasing a floating red tail in the sky to a fantasy city. The production team includes artist Chuan Ming-yuan (全明遠), Funique VR studio and Zero One Tech.
In an interview with Central News Agency, the jury Priscila Guedes said that they see a strong potential in this VR project and while there were technical limitations and challenging artistic choices that come with VR filmmaking, the jurors were mesmerized by its story and beauty. They also commented that the film's artistic aesthetic and fantasy ambience were very appealing, the motion graphics were extremely detailed and it is a major breakthrough in VR film-making.
Wang, who is based in Taiwan, said that receiving the award is a great encouragement to the team. He added that it is a great honor to win the award and the biggest credit goes to his team members. He also revealed that the full version of Red Tail was completed last week, and that he looked forward to premiering the project at the upcoming 22nd Kaohsiung Film Festival scheduled for October, as well as potentially entering it in the Venice Film Festival in September.
Wang's win also marks the second time that a Taiwanese submission was recognized at the festival. In 2020, "Bodyless (失身記2.0)," a film by Taiwanese new media artist Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健), won the Masque d'or (Golden Mask) Grand Prize at the festival.