Mirror Fiction, a production company and literary IP developer from Taiwan, awarded its NT$1 million ($32,000) Grand Prize to Iris Kong for the suspense novel “The Stand-In Family” (provisional title). The story involves four strangers who impersonate a family inside a house where a murder occurred, while being watched by a property developer. One of the characters is forced to face a past wrongdoing during the ordeal.
Kong, who works as an engineer, stated that winning this award was a clear goal when she created the story. She noted that while she had written other works previously, adapting them for the screen would have been too expensive. Consequently, she began this project with a realistic setting and production costs in mind from the start.
The NT$700,000 ($22,500) Judges’ Award was given to Malaysian writer Liang Xuan for the provisional title “Endless Rain.” Both winning works are eligible for development into screen adaptations and publication through Mirror Fiction.
Tung Cheng-yu, CEO of Mirror Fiction, explained that the award aims to encourage writers and present promising literary properties to investors. Tung stated, “I believe that only when you genuinely fall in love with a story can you make the best adaptation.” She added that adapting a novel is easier than starting from scratch because the novel provides an established world. Tung also claimed that films adapted from books saw more than 40% higher attendance than original films, and television content saw a difference exceeding 60%, though she did not name the source of these figures.
The fifth edition of the award saw 529 submissions totaling over 40 million Chinese characters, with winners chosen through multiple judging rounds.
During the second half of the event, sales director Sharleen Liu presented five projects for the company’s 2027 IP slate:
“036037” by Kevin Chen: A contemporary romance about two middle-aged people revisiting a relationship from over twenty years ago. It has a screen adaptation deal and a four-volume print edition set for December.
“The Midnight Masseuse: A Taipei Noir” by Tommy Tan: A crime thriller starting with the murder of a female massage therapist that reveals connections between police, prosecutors, politicians, and business interests.
“Double Diplomacy” by Daniel Hsieh: A story about two brothers—a diplomat and a criminal strategist—who swap identities and become involved in a diplomatic crisis involving organized crime and international negotiations.
“Red-Haired Inibs” by Nakao Eki Pacidal: A story by an Indigenous writer and historian about a girl of mixed Indigenous and Dutch ancestry in 17th-century Taiwan searching for her father.
“The Stand-In Family” by Iris Kong: The Grand Prize winner.
Mirror Fiction, which has expanded into film and television investment and production, has previously worked on the Netflix series “The Victims’ Game,” which won at Taiwan’s Golden Bell Awards. Its investment portfolio includes “The Falls” by Chung Mong-hong and the horror film “The Rope Curse 3.”
