TAPETUM LUCIDUM 2026 – The 10th Taiwan International Cat Film Festival
In an era when generative images expand at infinite speed, images are no longer captured but manufactured, and cinema is no longer a record of light and shadow but the result of computational processes. Global tensions are pulled between political borders and algorithms; images of war and entertainment are juxtaposed on the same silver/screen, and the boundary between reality and fiction can no longer be clearly drawn. The world continues to move forward through everyday life, yet the flood of images has quietly transformed how we perceive light, time, and existence.
At such a moment of transition, the Cat Film Festival arrives at its tenth year. Over the past decade, we have taken cats as our point of departure to rethink the meaning of “cinema.” To watch is not to fix one’s gaze on an object, but to return to the perception of oneself. It is not about extracting images, but about learning how the world unfolds before us. With their ancient and silent bodies, cats remind us that the essence of images has never been technology, but traces of time; and that cinema has never been mere representation, but a renewed seeing and gazing upon life itself.
This year, we invite eight renowned creators who, through different methods and modes of thought, jointly construct a matrix of the Cat Film Festival. This matrix is neither a symbol nor a form; it is like a film yet to be screened, a roll of film still in the process of development. Each selected work this year is a shared breath between humans and cats, a gentle moment, and a questioning of images. Cats are both subject and method. They wander across a decade of images, teaching us—through their cinematic trajectories—how to sense the folds of time and how to discern reality within the seams of images.
The Cat Film Festival is not held for cats, but through cats, as a way to seek a mode of viewing that is closer to the essence of life and art. The tenth edition is not a retrospective, but a philosophical comma. At this moment, we regard the accumulated understanding of the past ten years as an unfinished film: one with multiple narrative axes, diverse historical currents, and many image-moments still awaiting interpretation.
Thus, “10” is not merely an anniversary marker, but a model of perception. In an age of infinite image reproduction and constantly deforming realities, through the tenth Cat Film Festival we reaffirm the possibilities of cinema as an art form. At this moment, ten years on, the Cat Film Festival remains as light and gentle as a cat’s footsteps, leisurely guiding us toward the future without haste. There, cinema is still full of new possibilities, the Earth continues to turn, and the Cat Film Festival will remain a shared utopian space of resistance for cats and for us.
2026 Participating Artists
- Bill Brand (US)
- Yuri Obitani (JP)
- Andre Birken (DE/PT)
- Devin Shears (CA)
- D.K. Odessa (US)
- Ming-Yu Lee (TW)
- Bamboo Hsu (TW)
- Tanya + Saymon (RUS)
For more information, please refer to the festival website.
About the Artists
Bill Brand
Bill Brand is a multi-disciplinary artist whose films, public artwork, installations, paintings and works-on-paper have exhibited worldwide in museums, galleries, film festivals, microcinemas and on television. His 1980 Masstransiscope is an animated mural permanently installed in the New York City subway.
Bill Brand’s artwork has been featured at Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, Anthology Film Archive and Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art. His films have been presented at major film festivals including the Berlin Film Festival, New Directors/ New Films Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Light Field Festival, (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico, Prismatic Ground Film Festival and the Flaherty Film Seminar.He is represented by Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre, Paris and Court Tree Collective, Brooklyn.
Bill Brand lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, with his wife, the artist Katy Martin.
Andre Birken
Andre is interested in Multi Media Arts, Linguistics, Ethnology, Cinema and Landscapes. Studied in Bielefeld (D), Hannover (D) and Évora (PT). Learned Photography, Drawing, Writing, Super8, Digital Video and Sound Art. Was a Radio Host, Gardener, Musician, Vegetarian Chef, Filmmaker and Tour Guide of Portugal. Lives, works and creates in Portugal and Germany.
https://soundcloud.com/dulundum
D.K. Odessa
D.K. Odessa is a multi-award-winning director, documentary filmmaker, visual artist, professor, Fulbright scholar, former poet, and occasional musician. As a writer-director-producer of film and television, his work has appeared seemingly everywhere, several times. Based in New York, then Los Angeles, and now in Durham, North Carolina in the United States, he lives in the woods, hikes, spends time with his family and pets, and teaches at Elon University.
Yuri Obitani
Obitani is a Japanese artist who actives in the avant-garde music and film since ‘80s, also participated in this festival in 2018 with “Your Intruder.” In 2021, he also collaborated with MingYu Lee on the film letter “Correspondence” (world premiered at EX!T 11). Filmography includes: “The Hair Opera (毛髪歌劇)” 1993, “Wild Shaman Maiden (野巫女)” 2007.
Devin Shears
Devin Shears is a filmmaker from St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador whose work explore queer alienation and desire. His short films have screened at the Atlantic Film Festival, Vancouver Intl. Film Festival, Anti-Matter, and more. His first feature Cherub, which was produced as part of York University’s MFA program, has screened at festivals internationally including VIFF, Festival du Nouveau Cinema, BFI Flare, and The Jeonju International Film Festival.
Ming-Yu Lee
Lee holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Glasgow and an M.F.A. in Film Production from the Graduate Institute of Radio, Television and Film at Shih Hsin University. Lee’s short films have been screened at Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS) in São Paulo, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, as well as at international film festivals worldwide.
His publications include Crossing Cinema: the Diary Film, the Essay Film, and the Voice of I (2023), The Diary Film and Subjectivity of the Self: Taiwan-New York-Paris (2016), and Paysages du contresens (2010).
He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Radio, Television and Film at Shih Hsin University (Taipei).
http://leemingyu0912.wixsite.com/mingyulee
Tsen-Chu Hsu
Tsen-Chu Hsu received her MFA in Film at the San Francisco Art Institute. She is an experimental filmmaker and devoted to exploring the intersection of handcrafting and filmmaking. She also works as a film educator focusing on film arts and film preservation.
Tanya + Saymon
About the Works
Zip-Tone-Cat-Tune, 7’30” (Color, Silent, 1972)｜Bill Brand
A simple 16mm home movie of a cat is optical printed through a ‘Zip-a-tone’ dot pattern making a complex of layers. In combination with freeze frames, positive and negative, and color motion, this work attempts to visually construct a system of overlays like those in Baroque musical composition.
Don’t Let My Bees Misunderstood, 6’56” (a lost film, circa 2011/2012)｜Andre Birken
He didn’t cut the cat in two. He cut it in one.
– From The Nansen Koan.
A playful, experimental short about a farm cat,
Undisturbed by honk, hiss or buzz
Taipei Cat Dreams of Sicily, 1’13” (2025)｜D.K. Odessa
A long-held assumption is that cats daydream about bowls of milk, plates of fish, and the detention of mice. This film hypothesizes that – at least in brief flashes – cats are capable of far more sophisticated reveries.
Boss of Green, 30′ (2026) ｜Yuri Obitani
It’s also an usual film of mine. Seven suites about work for making a sound and travel on foot. And a cat also roams on his own.
Dear Devil by Ribbon Tied, 3’11” (2017)｜Devin Shears
In this music video for Dear Devil by the band Ribbon Tied a community of stray cats that live in The Battery (a small neighbourhood found in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada) goes about their day.
Ballsy, 1’23” (2026)｜Ming-Yu Lee
To Ballsy.
I Love Paper Cats – Developing Series #1 (2026)｜Tsen-Chu Hsu
I’m not really a cat person, but somehow, I still enjoy photographing cats I happen to meet on the street. Through optical toy techniques, these paper cats are brought to life.
Tanya + Saymon
For more information, please refer to the festival website.
Time｜2026.3.7-8 & 3.14-15 2-6pm (Door opens 1:30 pm)
Venue | TheCube Project Space (2F, No. 13, Alley 1, Lane 136, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei)
Official website | https://catfilmtaiwan.wixsite.com/tlticff
*Each film will be played on a loop throughout the day.
Organizer | Ming-Yu Lee, Yung-Hao Liu
Co-organizer | TheCube Project Space
Date:
2026 年 1 月 28 日
