The film festival will be held Monday and Tuesday at the Taipei No 2 Funeral Parlour. Several local and foreign films on life and death will be shown, the United Daily News (UDN) said.

'After each film, the audience can have a discussion with professors and Buddhist monks on the meaning of life and on how to face death,' UDN quoted Liu Li-fang, an official from the funeral parlour, as saying.

The Taipei No 2 Funeral Parlour, run by the Taipei city government, has shocked the public several times in recent years with its open-minded initiatives.

In 2003, it opened a cafe next to its crematorium, and last year it held a musical in a cemetary to encourage the burying of cremated remains under a tree. In June, the mortuary held a make-up contest for morticians using real corpses.

The funeral parlour said that the unusual events are an attempt to demystify death and to help people better appreciate life.