Established in 1993, Women Make Waves Int’l Film Festival, Taiwan has been one of the major film festivals in Taiwan and has established itself as the biggest one dedicated to supporting female talents. It is also the longest running and largest issue-oriented film festival in Taiwan. Women Make Waves Int’l Film Festival aims to celebrate the achievements of outstanding female talents, to explore different aspects of female experiences, feminism, and beyond, and to promote equality and rights of all genders. By covering a wide range of genres, issues, and representations of gender, WMWIFF seeks to promote great cinematic arts by female talents and to advocate gender equality through films with feminist consciousness and various subjects.
In 1993, the inaugural Women Make Waves, jointly organized by the Awakening Foundation and B&W Film Studio, was the predecessor of Women Make Waves Int'l Film Festival Taiwan. In 2000, Women Make Waves was renamed as Women Make Waves Film/Video Festival. This marked the first time the film festival hosted screenings at the cinema. The film festival expanded significantly, solidifying itself as one of the major cultural events. In 2012, the film festival was officially renamed as Women Make Waves Int'l Film Festival Taiwan.
In 1998, as the film festival entered its 5th edition, gender studies and discourses had become prominent in Taiwan. To ensure the prospect of the film festival, Taipei Women's Film Association was founded in September of the same year. HUANG Yu-Shan served as the first chairwoman of the Association. In 2001, the film festival established the model of nation-wide film tours, marking one of the first film festivals to do so in Taiwan. It has jointly held screenings with local theaters, organizations, universities, educational institutions, and cultural venues, in order to reduce rural-urban differences and promote gender equity through films beyond Taipei.
