Taiwan Picks Golden Horse Winner 'A Foggy Tale' for Oscar Submission

Taiwan has chosen A Foggy Tale, directed by Chen Yu-hsun, as its entry for the best international feature film category at the 99th Academy Awards, the Ministry of Culture announced on August 18, 2026 (Variety).

The film was selected from seven domestic submissions by majority vote. The committee praised its vivid characters, smooth narrative and its portrait of ordinary people navigating a particular era — one that reflects Taiwan's distinct character while carrying what the panel called "universal humanistic care" (Variety).

Set in 1953, A Foggy Tale follows a teenage girl from Chiayi City who travels to Taipei to retrieve the body of her brother, executed by the Kuomintang government during the White Terror — the decades-long period of political repression under martial law in Taiwan. The cast includes Caitlin Fang, Will Or, the singer-actress 9m88, and Tseng Jing-hua. Yeh Jufeng and Lee Lieh produced the film under the banner Mandarin Vision (Variety).

Chen Yu-hsun is a multiple Golden Horse Award winner, best known internationally for My Missing Valentine, which took best narrative feature at the 61st Golden Horse Awards. A Foggy Tale had its world premiere as the opening film of the 2025 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and went on to lead last year's Golden Horse field with 11 nominations, winning four prizes at the 62nd edition: best narrative feature, best original screenplay for Chen, best art direction, and best makeup and costume design. It also collected five awards at the 28th Taipei Film Awards (Variety).

Beyond Taiwan, the film competed at Italy's Udine Far East Film Festival and screened at festivals in Hong Kong, San Diego and Singapore (Variety).

Taiwan has submitted films to the Academy's international feature category — formerly called best foreign language film — since 1957. The territory has been nominated three times, all directed by Ang Lee: The Wedding Banquet (1993), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which won the award in 2000. Three other Taiwanese entries reached the Academy's shortlist — the preliminary round before the final five nominees — without a nomination: Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (2011), A Sun (2020) and last year's Left-Handed Girl (Variety).

The 99th Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled for March 14, 2027 (Variety).