Korea & Japan

Autumn Markets Part Two: Japan & Taiwan’s International Strategies

Liz Shackleton

19 Nov 2025 — 9 min read

TIFFCOM 2025

This edition of Streamlined is a recap of activity at Tokyo International Film Festival, its accompanying contents market TIFFCOM and Taiwan Creative Content Fest, also touching on the international strategies of Japan and Taiwan, which are currently looking like two of the healthier film and TV economies in East Asia, although of course this is all relative..

Before we get stuck in, I just wanted to thank everyone who wrote or messaged me after the last edition of Streamlined, about the possible over-supply of projects/content and lack of focus on distribution solutions, which seemed to touch a chord with many people. Rather than try to summarise what everyone said here, I’ll try to pull everything together for a separate newsletter before the end of the year, but there are clearly structural issues in the industry that need to be addressed.

Speaking of structural issues – I just want to highlight a story that broke today about India’s indie filmmakers coming together to campaign for greater screen access at the country’s multiplexes and other cinemas (see full story here). This is a situation that needs to be addressed by so many territories.

And also a big story that broke last week – about Australia finally introducing local content investment obligations for global streamers, which will be explored in more detail in the second part of the 'Streamlined Guide to Streaming Levies and Investment Obligations', to be published soon.

Japan Keeps Foot On Expansion Pedal But Hits A Few Speed Bumps

It was clear at the opening of Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) last month that the Japanese government is backing the country’s film and TV sector to the hilt, with government ministers making several mentions of it being a “key industry” and talking up recent box office successes such as Lee Sang-il’s Kokuho and anime blockbuster Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle (which just added $50m over its opening weekend in China).

Government policy is supporting Japan’s content industries across multiple areas – including the 50% production incentive; a wide range of funding schemes for local productions through the Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO); the international co-production fund managed by the Agency for Cultural Affairs; along with overseas promotional activity. And it seems to be paying off, or at least contributing to a filmmaking renaissance, with critically-acclaimed box office hits like Kokuho; international co-productions on the festival circuit, including Renoir, Lost Land and Diamonds In The Sand; and the continued global expansion of the country’s blockbuster anime industry.

The rest of the world seems to be taking notice – Cannes Marche du Film announced during TIFF that Japan has been designated as Country of Honour at the 2026 edition of the market, during which Japanese cinema will be highlighted through panels, networking events, project showcases and special screening events.

TIFF (Oct 27-Nov 5) and its accompanying TIFFCOM contents market (Oct 29-31) were both tapping into this renewed energy – TIFFCOM reported a 9% increase in overseas participants to 1,874 (and 4,592 overall) despite a busy autumn festival period. Similar to last year, the market featured presentations by Japanese studios and broadcasters, including Nippon TV and TBS, outlining their international expansion plans, along with an eye-opening keynote from industry veteran Tetsu Fujimura about how Hollywood is acquiring and utilising Japanese IP.

But also during the festival and market, I got the feeling that overcoming decades of being a relatively insular and conservative market is still going to take some time for Japan. Some Japanese companies are better than others but they tend to struggle with sharing advance information on projects. And while TIFFCOM had excellent simultaneous translation, most of the slides displayed during seminars were in Japanese. When I held up my phone to use Google Translate’s camera function, the ushers said taking pictures was not allowed. My bad for not speaking Japanese (I’m working on it!), but whether we like it or not, English is still the language used by the film business for international communication.

Another area where Japan is still figuring out how to open up is in the servicing of international productions. There’s been a steady flow of international shoots since the rebate was introduced a few years back, but a series of seminars organised by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) at TIFF touched on some of the country’s infrastructure challenges. Although the situation is slowly improving, the major issues seem to be a lack of large sound stages, backlots and bilingual crews with experience of working on Hollywood productions, along with some restrictions on the timing of the application process for the incentive. Producers also said they’d appreciate faster decision-making on the incentive.

This seems to explain why the first season of FX/Hulu’s Shogun was filmed in Vancouver despite its Japanese setting, although Covid was also a factor in that decision. However, the second season also appears to be heading to Vancouver early next year, rather than Japan.

But then Japan, like other countries attracting overseas production, needs to decide if it wants to gear up to host a high volume of big-budget international shoots at a time when Hollywood is not looking that stable; VR and AI are transforming production processes; and there may be a steady flow of smaller-budget productions closer to home. The experience of countries like the UK and Australia show that once you’ve built stage capacity and trained crew, you need to keep those plates spinning year-round, sometimes at the expense of local productions.

TAICCA Sticks To Market-Oriented Funding Strategy

The sixth edition of Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF, November 4-7), organised by Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), was well organised, felt busy and had a strong pitching and forum line-up. I’m still not convinced of the need for another physical sales booth market, just one week after TIFFCOM, and continuing the theme of the last edition of Streamlined, whether there’s a need for that volume of projects, just a few weeks before Golden Horse Film Project Promotion, or what kind of buyers the event is hoping to attract.

But Taiwan, with all its geopolitical complexities, definitely deserves an international event to profile its talent, content production and distribution companies, potential for international collaboration and funding opportunities. The local industry is small and fragmented but starting to draw investment from the local tech and telecoms sector; continues to be the production base of choice for global streamers making Chinese-language content; and is also establishing a track record in tech-driven content such as AR and VR. It’s a pity TCCF can’t take place at the same time as Taiwan’s well-regarded Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, but the two events are run by very different organisations and it’s unlikely that those two stars will ever align.

This year’s TCCF opened with the launch of two funds that TAICCA is investing in along with local telco Far EasTone Telecom – the $20m (NT$600m) Enjoy Entertainment Fund, with a focus on “promoting Taiwanese IP internationally and introducing world-class works to Taiwan”, and the $30m (NT$960m) Entertainment and Cultural Content Fund, also backed by CJ ENM Hong Kong and Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS Media.

Over the following few days, TAICCA signed a bunch of MoUs with local and international companies, which are basically a signal of intent to work together, without many details. Much more solid was the announcement that TAICCA, through the Taiwanese government’s National Development Fund (NDF), and Taiwanese IP development company Mirror Fiction are co-investing $10m into the launch of production outfit Mirror Entertainment. TAICCA and the NDF have made similar investments over the years into local production outfits Mandarin Vision, Damou Entertainment and Screenworks Asia.

So there’s a lot of money floating around, but what is the overall strategy? TAICCA came under new management this summer with Sue Wang Shih-sze, who also serves as Taiwan’s Deputy Minister of Culture, appointed as chairperson, and Erica Wang Min-hui, who was previously Deputy GM of PwC Taiwan, stepping into the role of CEO. The new heads don’t appear to be making any big strategy changes – in an interview I wrote for Deadline, Erica Wang said the government-backed agency aims to industrialise Taiwan’s content production, build scale and expand ties with international studios and streamers. That’s similar to the messaging we heard from the previous team.

Aside from TAICCA’s operating expenses, most funding seems to come from the NDF and there is no more talk of the Ministry of Culture’s $320n (NT$10bn) ‘One Plus Four－T-Content Plan’, touted at TCCF two years ago under the previous government. However, the NDF has already granted a second tranche of $320m funding to TAICCA.

The source of the funding – from an investment vehicle rather than the Ministry of Culture – likely explains TAICCA’s funding strategy. It’s been nearly two years since the agency’s Taiwan International Co-funding Program (TICP) changed funding criteria away from international arthouse cinema and towards more mainstream projects. When it comes to international co-production, TAICCA has always made investments rather than handing out grants, and it's now clear that the agency is operating more like a financial institution by enforcing strict rules on application requirements and recoupment. Local producers are finding it difficult to combine this style of funding with the European system of subsidies and grants.

However, Taiwan does have other sources of funding, which may be more suitable for arthouse or smaller budget projects. While the Ministry of Culture’s 30% tax credit incentive is aimed at bigger productions, there’s also a network of regional screen commissions, some offering investment and some grants. There are also tech industry and other sources of finance in the private sector. In summary, Taiwan remains an interesting potential partner, depending on the type of content you’re producing, but there’s a lot of moving parts which, like Taiwan’s events schedule, may be tricky to align.

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IN THE TRADES:

Autumn Markets Part Two: Japan & Taiwan’s International Strategies

Liz Shackleton

Japan Keeps Foot On Expansion Pedal But Hits A Few Speed Bumps

TAICCA Sticks To Market-Oriented Funding Strategy

IN THE TRADES:

TAIWAN FUNDING:

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