When Co-Production Means More Than Sharing a Budget

When Co-Production Means More Than Sharing a Budget: Four New Works Backed by TAICCA.

Four new international cultural-tech projects receive close to NT$20 million in funding through the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) 2026 Innovative Content Grant for International Co-Funding or Co-Productions.

Selected from 24 applications, the projects bring together Taiwanese studios with creative and production partners from the UK, Luxembourg and France.

This year's recipients are:

PILGRIMS
Surprise Lab, Taiwan × DARKFIELD, UK
Grant: NT$5 million

OUBLIETTE
Wen-E Studio, Taiwan × a_BAHN, Luxembourg
Grant: NT$4.94 million

Poetics of Soil
VIVE Arts Corporation, Taiwan × Marshmallow Laser Feast, UK
Grant: NT$5 million

The Lightness of Giants
NAXS Studio, Taiwan × Lucid Realities, France
Grant: NT$5 million

The five-member international jury brought together expertise from Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Canada across immersive production, curation, operations and market development. AIIO Creative Group Founder & Executive Producer Nina Albani served on the jury alongside Chung Tian Yang, Jo Tan, Katsutoshi Machiba and Ana Brzezińska.

One notable aspect of this year’s selection is the strength of the international partnerships themselves. These are not simply projects with an overseas company attached. Each brings together teams from different creative and cultural backgrounds, with their own approaches to storytelling, technology, audience experience and production. The resulting collaborations show how international co-production can become part of the creative process itself, rather than only a financing or delivery structure.

TAICCA also noted the unusually strong quality of this year’s submissions in both narrative innovation and business modelling. The jury unanimously agreed to increase the number of projects selected in order to support more works with international potential. That balance between creative ambition and a clear production model has become increasingly visible in the programme.

Launched in 2020, the grant was created to encourage Taiwanese creators to experiment with new forms of cultural content while developing projects with international partners. The scale and international reach of the programme have grown steadily. In 2021, TAICCA received 27 applications and funded six projects; in 2024, four projects were selected from 33 applications.

The programme itself has also broadened beyond a narrow definition of immersive media. The current guidelines are format-agnostic and support projects combining cultural content with technologies ranging from VR and mixed reality to interactive experiences, performance, game engines, AI and other forms of technological integration.

Importantly, TAICCA positions the grant not only as production funding. Its 2026 programme explicitly aims to support international market validation and global distribution opportunities, while the agency has also built partnerships with international festivals and industry platforms to connect Taiwanese creators with producers, curators and markets abroad.