Ex-position Feature Topic Call for Papers
(Guest Editor: Kenny Kwok Kwan Ng, Hong Kong Baptist University)
Publication Date: December 2019 (Issue No. 42)
Submission Deadline: July 1, 2019
“Independent cinema” in Hong Kong has gained much currency both in academia and in film production and reception circles since the 1997 handover. Despite the fact that the term itself is frequently invoked in critical discourse and film festival programming, the meanings and contours of independent cinema as it is practiced in Hong Kong remain a matter of debate, except for the general consensus that being “independent” in moviemaking confers a disposition of distancing from the mainstream film industry in terms of styles, genres, modes of production and exhibition, financing, or public reception. Independent filmmakers can be bona fide auteurs who have greater control over the subject matter and stylistic choices of their works compared with their mainstream counterparts. Still, creative autonomy is never absolute and always comes with a cost. Filmmakers have to play by the rules of the emerging habitus of independent cinema, while the dynamic and ambivalent exchanges between independent and mainstream cinema are constantly at play in Hong Kong when an independent filmmaker (or film) enters mainstream production and circulation.
This feature topic calls for articles that examine independent cinema in the context of post-handover Hong Kong. In particular, it welcomes articles that try to reinvent or interrogate the notion of Hong Kong Indiescape. Any approach is welcome: the paper may look at the aesthetic sensibilities, intellectual positions, or socio-political functions of Hong Kong independent films, from the perspectives of filmmakers, critics, academics, students, social activists, or concerned viewers.
Possible topics may include:
- Youth
- Queerscape
- City and Nation
- Genre Interrogation
- Politics and Local Society
- Ecology, Land, and Community
**For submission guidelines, visit the journal’s website:
http://ex-position.org
Posted by: Hsiu-ting Jian <exposition@ntu.edu.tw>
Editorial Office Manager, Ex-position
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan
http://ex-position.org