Film

posts related to Chinese-language film

Failed Animation, Limited Theory

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Failed Animation, Limited Theory: Feminist Reflections in a Transnational Context, lecture by Professor Karen Redrobe, 9:30-11am, Feb 7, 2024 (Wed, HK Time), Room 3301 & Zoom

Title: Failed Animation, Limited Theory: Feminist Reflections in a Transnational Context
Speaker: Professor Karen Redrobe, Pennsylvania University, USA
Moderator: Professor Daisy Yan Du, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, HK
Format: 40-50 minutes’ lecture, followed by around 30 minutes’ Q & A
Time: 9:30-11am, Feb 7, 2024 (Wed, Hong Kong Time)
Location: Room 3301 (Lifts no. 2, 17, 18), Academic Building, HKUST
Zoom ID: 956 6919 0626
Password: ACASSHSS

Abstract: 

Film histories, theories, and textbooks have often focused on “peak” live-action moments, triumphant or movement-defining aesthetics, box office hits, award-winning auteurs, and dominant, enduring theories. As such narratives have largely prioritized white, male, heteronormative artists and thinkers, feminist historians and theorists have, not surprisingly, frequently demonstrated a more active interest in what might be designated unsuccessful, failed, marginalized, collaborative, modest, and even laughable filmmaking and theoretical efforts. This feminist preoccupation with the incomplete, the unresolved, and the non-triumphant, recently explored in Alix Beeston and Stefan Solomon’s coedited collection, The Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film (2023), suggests what the British psychoanalytic feminist scholar Jacqueline Rose describes as an “ethics of failure” (“Why War?”). For Rose, being willing to fail and resisting the “conviction of absolute truth” is intimately linked to the avoidance of war and warlike violence. In this talk, I will reflect informally, at the intersection of animation and film theory and within the context of 21st century efforts to develop transnational scholarly methods that do not reproduce colonial forms of knowledge, on the possibilities for thought generated in spaces of incompletion, failure, and provisionality. Continue reading Failed Animation, Limited Theory →

Chine: les influenceurs de la colonisation

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Excellent new film on the ongoing Chinese colonization of genocided areas:

https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/113682-006-A/sources/
Chine: les influenceurs de la colonisation [English subtitles]
Arte / Sources, France 2023.
Disponible: 15 dec. 2023 to 29 Nov. 2026

Also available on Youtube:

This new 15 minute ARTE film is about Chinese colonizer-influencers in Xinjiang, hired by the State to promote colonization of ethnic- cleansed areas under the military-industrial Bingtuan complex (XPCC), the main tool of state settler colonialism in Xinjiang kicking in higher gears during this phase of the genocide.

It’s a lot like what Nazi Europe would have been like, had the Nazis won WWII. Or indeed, Israelis in a future fully cleansed Gaza, with an ocean view,” as one extremist settler leader recently memorably promoted it.

(I was just interviewed by the RFA to comment on the ARTE film. The interview may first come out in Uyghur, but I can send the link later. The main point: this is all part of a logical sequence of genocide – camps, mass destruction of separated families, forced labor or prison for split up parents and children’s Gulag for the kids. Down to how the belongings of the evicted and detained Uyghur owners of the land, now in the camps, or dead, shows up on Chinese ebay: https://bitterwinter.org/uyghur-family-fortunes-mysteriously-reappear-for-auction/)

Sincerely,

Magnus Fiskesjö, nf42@cornell.edu

Interviews with filmmakers

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List members might be interested in two interviews I published recently in Cineaste, one with the director Qiu Jiongjiong and the other with the directing team of Huang Ji and Ryûji Otsuka. Here are the details:

“Make it New! An Interview with Qiu Jiongjiong on A New Old Play.” Cineaste XLVIII, 1 (Winter 2022): 20-25. (now included in the booklet for the DVD)

“A Body of Her Own: An Interview with Huang Ji and Ryûji Otsuka.” Cineaste XLVIII, 3 (Summer 2023): 28-33.

Jiwei Xiao <jiweixiao@gmail.com>

Qiu Jiongjiong seminar–cfp

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CALL for PAPERS
Memories, Storytelling, and Intermediality in the Film World of Qiu Jiongjiong
Master of Arts in Literary and Cultural Studies
Department of Comparative Literature
University of Hong Kong
March 15, 2024

The Dept. of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong invites speakers to present research at a seminar focused on the films of internationally acclaimed Chinese independent filmmaker Qiu Jiongjiong. A major contributor to the growth of Chinese independent cinema from the mid-2000s to 2012, Qiu is known for his documentary portraits of marginalized Chinese subjects relegated from mainstream society. Eschewing the observational mode of his contemporaries and their realistic static shots of everyday life, Qiu calls upon his intermedial background as a playwright, stage actor, and visual artist to vivify performative portraits of charismatic characters living through periods of monumental change, from the cultural revolution to the reform and opening up, as well as neoliberalization endemic to the post-socialist era.

Recalling personal minor histories, such as his family’s embedded influence on Sichuan Opera, Qiu uses experimental techniques to create unique assemblages of sound, image, and narrative that generate intertextual, intergenerational, and affective resonances. Qiu’s alienating yet intimate documentaries “evoke and record social and political material that mainstream Chinese culture is uncomfortable with” (Kraicer 2022). He gained critical acclaim at Chinese film festivals with his “chatterbox trilogy,” which focuses on dynamic subjects such as a retired Sichuanese police officer in A Portrait of Mr. Huang (2009), whose jovial demeanor offsets his horrifying tales of murder and cannibalism. Chinese audiences and critics embraced Qiu’s most unforgettable subject, Fan Qihui/Bilang de Linphél of Madame (2010). A tailor of couture knockoffs by day and drag stage performer by night, Fan/Bilang’s comedic insights and melancholic obsessions with the aesthetic valuations of contemporary Chinese beauty and bodily commodification found added resonance when news broke of their unexpected suicide before the film’s premiere. Continue reading Qiu Jiongjiong seminar–cfp →

Transgressive Women in East Asian Screen Cultures–cfp

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CFP Symposium: Transgressive Women in East Asian Screen Cultures
23 – 24 May 2024
Cardiff University School of Modern Languages
More information here

Call for Papers

Female transgression – the act of pushing or breaking the boundaries of social, moral and/or legal codes – has long fascinated producers and consumers of culture. Nowhere is this more the case than in East Asian societies – think of the many literary works, films and plays inspired by the notorious story of Japan’s Abe Sada, who killed and mutilated her lover; or the numerous Chinese films and television dramas about the myths of Wu Zetian, who allegedly assassinated her own son to become the first and only female emperor in Chinese history. Some of the most popular original Netflix Korean series this year, The Glory, Kill Boksoon, Mask Girl, have a common theme of vengeful women who struggle with their motherhood/family relationships. Such creative production often acts as a window into the anxieties and pain of a society undergoing political upheaval, particularly with regards to changing gender dynamics and the advancement of women’s rights. Historically, stories of transgression in a male-dominated cultural field have not only revealed underlying social tensions, they have also served as sites for (re)articulating norms with regards to gender and sexuality. As Christine Marran (2007, xvii) observes, “[t]hose marginalised within society are symbolically central to how a society describes itself”. Continue reading Transgressive Women in East Asian Screen Cultures–cfp →

Uyghur filmmaker who studied in Turkey prosecuted in China

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Source: Ethnic ChinaLit (Bruce-Humes.com) (11/9/23)
Uyghur Film-maker Who Studied in Turkey Prosecuted in China

In “Uyghur film-maker claims he was tortured by authorities in China,” the Guardian reports that Ikram Nurmehmet, a director known for his Uyghur protagonists in films such as The Elephant in the Car, recently had his day in court in Ürümqi:

“I was held in a dark room for 20 days and physically tortured,” Nurmehmet reportedly said during the trial, adding that he had been made to give false confessions under duress while in detention. “I never joined any terrorist group or any political activities while I was in Turkey,” he said.

It is not clear who revealed what Nurmehmet testified, but the report notes that members of his family were present at the trial. That such a trial was open to anyone outside of the prosecution is rare, as China normally treats terrorism-related trials as state secrets. He has reportedly been charged with terrorism and participating in a separatist movement.

According to Peter Irwin, an associate director for research and advocacy at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, who also spoke to the Guardian, the Turkey connection is key:

“There are a lot of people being sentenced who went to Turkey. In some ways, what this film-maker was doing through his work – the humanisation of Uyghurs and [facilitating] communication between Uyghurs and Chinese people – I think the government is suspicious and worries about this kind of stuff.” Continue reading Uyghur filmmaker who studied in Turkey prosecuted in China →

Jewher Ilham on ‘All Static and Noise’

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Source: China Digital Times (11/7/23)
Interview: Jewher Ilham on the Documentary “All Static and Noise”
By 

On November 5, 2023, the Double Exposure Film Festival in Washington, D.C. screened the U.S. premiere of the documentary “All Static and Noise,” which investigates the arbitrary mass detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim-majority ethnic groups in Xinjiang, China.

The film is titled after the Party Secretary of Xinjiang University’s 2017 call to eliminate any “static and noise,” i.e. dissent, about the “People’s War on Terror,” the Chinese government’s euphemism for its campaign against the Uyghur people. In 2020, CDT published a leaked censorship directive issued by central Party authorities to state media instructing that the still-unfinished documentary be blocked within China: “Please take note and block the following illegal videos: the Tibet-related documentary ‘A Fugitive for 60 Years: the Dalai Lama’s Old Age,’ the Xinjiang documentary ‘Static and Noise,’ and the Hong Kong documentary ‘City of Tears.’”

The official trailer for “All Static and Noise” can be viewed here:

After the showing, CDT conducted a brief interview with Jewher Ilham, rights activist and daughter of jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti; David Novack, the film’s director; and Janice Englehart, a producer/writer. Their responses situate Jewher Ilham’s advocacy in the longer tradition of those initially drawn into broader activism by the plight of a loved one. The transcript of our conversation has been lightly edited for grammar only: Continue reading Jewher Ilham on ‘All Static and Noise’ →

Chinese animation at international film fests

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Source: Association for Chinese Animation Studies (11/3/23)
Chinese Animation at International Film Festivals: A Report from the 19th Seoul Indie-Anifest, South Korea, September 14-19, 2023
By Grace Han

The hour strikes; the lights dim. The gentle call of ocean waves washes over the audience.  The 4-note singsong of the school bell rings in the distance. Then, suddenly, a girl, soaked in pastel azure blues, appears on-screen. We follow her rotoscoped form closely, climbing up the stairs to the school rooftop with her. As she opens the door, we spot another girl, clad in school uniform, looking out towards the cerulean seas on the rain-soaked terrace. The schoolgirl leaps over the rooftop’s edge, as does our protagonist from the stairs. Their hands touch, their eyes meet, and – in this extreme long shot – the camera takes a step back (fig 1). The film pauses. As the two remain suspended between the heavens and the earth, silhouetted by a majestic lens flare over the horizon, a voiceover ponders aloud in Korean: “Where are we going? What will we become?”

Fig 1: Two figures framed in the 19th Seoul Indie-Anifest trailer (2023), by Han Ji-won.

These questions seemed to weigh upon the 19th iteration of the Seoul Indie-Anifest, in addition to this festival trailer by Han Ji-won. At the packed opening ceremony, festival director Yujin Choi revealed that the slogan for the festival this year was “Nineteen,” in reflection of the festival’s own coming-of-age. After all, in South Korea, age 19 just precedes the legal age of 20; as such, 19 marks the turning point of adolescence. Moreover, Choi remarked that this year witnessed the festival’s first full-blown return from the COVID-19 pandemic. While the festival operated in-person for the last three years, it did so at reduced capacity. In contrast, the festival completely opened its doors this year at CGV Yeonnam, ushering in international guests and the public alike (fig 2). Continue reading Chinese animation at international film fests →

Chinese Independent Film Archive launches

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The Chinese Independent Film Archive (CIFA) has been officially launched at Newcastle University. The launch was marked by a successful two-week programme in late September and early October, consisting of a large-scale multi-media exhibition; a poster exhibition; a film series of 19 films that were shown for the first time in the UK with post-screening Q&As with 16 filmmakers; a one-day symposium; four roundtables; and a journal issue launch.

CIFA is home to nearly 800 independent films, their associated material culture, over 140 oral history video interviews with a wide range of stakeholders, and other collections. It is the only archive of its kind in the world, established with the help of a research grant from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The archive hopes to draw attention to this unique, significant, but marginalised film culture, and encourage the use of the collections at CIFA for research on, and the teaching of, modern and contemporary China, over a wide range of subject areas.

Located on the second floor in the Old Library Building at Newcastle University, CIFA is open to students, researchers, and the general public, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, from 9:30am to 5:30pm. It provides access to a large collection of films and video interviews, intended to enhance the understanding of Chinese cinema, history, and society.

To make a reservation to visit CIFA, please click this link.

Luke Robinson <lahrobinson@icloud.com>

Drag in contemporary China

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New Publication
Source: Contemporary Theatre Review 33.1-2 (2023)
“Fanchuan and Bianzhuang: Ways of Doing Drag in Contemporary China”
By Hongwei Bao

With popular reality TV shows such as RuPaul’s Drag Race, the term ‘drag’ has come into the public attention in recent years. However, as Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier, editors of Contemporary Drag Practices and Performers, pointed out, drag as a global form of performance culture has long histories, rich heritages and multiple genealogies.1 It is therefore important to look at the local, indigenous, regional and hybrid forms of drag culture alongside its global forms to appreciate its diversity and richness. This also helps to identify the discourses and power relations that construct a dominant form of drag culture.

FIGURE 2. CROSSDRESSING PERFORMER AT THE SHANGHAI PRIDE, 2009 (CREDIT: KRIS KRUG, CREATIVE COMMONS)

This short essay examines the multiple genealogies and diverse forms of drag culture in contemporary China. I will draw examples from queer Chinese cinema, performance and activism. These examples and the forms they represent are by no means exhaustive, but they can offer an insight into the diversity of drag cultures in the contemporary Chinese context. In doing so, this essay hopes to contribute to a more open and capacious understanding global drag culture.

The diversity of the drag culture in China is manifested by the different terms used to translate drag. Fanchuan （反串）and bianzhuang （变装）are two of the most common terms used to describe drag in Mandarin Chinese. Fachuan – meaning crossdressing – is usually seen as a sophisticated art form of gender reversal performance deeply rooted in traditional Chinese theatre and Southeast Asia performance. Bianzhuang – usually translated as drag – refers primarily to contemporary drag performance in popular entertainment venues such as bars and clubs and its aesthetics is more akin to the American drag culture portrayed in Jennie Livingstone’s 1990 documentary Paris is Burning…. [READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE]

Genre trends in Chinese-language cinema

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Lecture: Post-Pandemic Era: Different Genre Trends in Chinese-Language Cinema in Mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
By Peggy Chiao
Friday, November 10, 2023, 3:00 PM- 5:00 PM
Meyerson Conference Room (WCH 4.118)
University of Texas, Austin

After the pandemic, films in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have evolved into different genres, reflecting the societal changes and collective consciousness in these three regions. My speech will focus on the development of various genres and how the diverse economic, social, and political situations behind them have resulted in these distinctions. Film markets worldwide went through a hiatus during the pandemic for several years. In Mainland China, after COVID-19, the film industry welcomed a thriving box-office boom. It developed new genres and saw innovation in creativity, aesthetics, and marketing strategies, posing a significant threat to the traditionally dominant Hollywood films. In contrast, Hong Kong and Taiwan had been targeting the Mainland Chinese market before the pandemic, leading to a divide within their domestic film industries regarding whether to ‘go north’ (literally translated as “North Drifter,” referring to those working in the Mainland). During the pandemic, the ‘going north’ trend came to a halt due to travel restrictions and regulations. Interestingly, both regions witnessed a surge in their local film industries. Hong Kong experienced a rise in small independent films, often with subversive socio-political undertones. Taiwan’s film industry, on the other hand, focused on survival and developing niche genre films with established markets. Continue reading Genre trends in Chinese-language cinema →

Journal of Chinese Cinemas special issue–cfp

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Call For Papers: Special Issue of the Journal of Chinese Cinemas
Energy and Media
Guest Editors: Weixian Pan (Queen’s University), Yandong Li (University of Washington)

Timeline:

December 30, 2023: Abstract of 350-500 words and author bios of 100 words maximum
May 30, 2024: Full article draft due
October 30, 2024: Article revisions due
Late 2024/early 2025: Special issue published

We invite essays that bridge studies of Chinese film and media with the burgeoning field of environmental humanities, with a particular focus on energy culture. In the past two decades, concepts such as “eco-media” and “media environment” have generated debates on the mediation of ecological crises, the philosophy of nature, and the materiality of media technologies (for example, Lu and Mi 2009; Chang 2019; Litzinger and Yang 2020; Bao et al. 2023). Whereas energy culture is deeply embedded in these concepts and prior debates, the distinct geographies and political economy call for different approaches to trace energy’s infrastructure, vectors of connections and disruptions, and in turn, how media becomes an integral part of the theorization and implementation of energy regimes (Mukherjee 2020; Cooper et al. 2023).

We see the urgency to continue the conversation between media culture and energy politics in the context of China, echoing existing efforts from energy historians of China such as Vaclav Smil, Victor Seow, and Hou Li. At the same time, we take this renewed interest in energy as an opportunity to unveil some of the invisible, ephemeral, technological and material flows that energize understanding of Chinese film and media. Therefore, we are interested in essays that contribute to this ongoing project to trace the forms of energy in Chinese film and media and explore how media shapes the historical and contemporary knowledge on energy. Essays examining transnational connections of media and energy are particularly welcome. Topics include but are not limited to: Continue reading Journal of Chinese Cinemas special issue–cfp →

Reel Taiwan

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Reel Taiwan: A Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Women Make Waves International Film Festival (WMWIFF)

Credit: SPRING CACTUS

NOV. 17 – 19 Download .ics
Co-sponsored by the Center for Religion and Media; Center for Media, Culture and History, NYU
FRIDAY, NOV. 17, 2023, 5:15 PM — 9:00 PM, MICHELSON THEATER, 721 BROADWAY
SATURDAY, NOV. 18, 2023, 3:00 PM — 8:30 PM, MICHELSON THEATER, 721 BROADWAY
SUNDAY, NOV. 19, 2023, 4:00 PM — 7:00 PM, MICHELSON THEATER, 721 BROADWAY

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Women Make Waves International Film Festival (WMWIFF, Taipei). For three decades, WMWIFF, the largest of its kind in Asia, has promoted and nourished countless women filmmakers from around the world including the Sinophone sphere. This special program (consisting of five fictional, experimental and documentary films) joins the celebrations taking place in Taipei, Paris and elsewhere this fall. The event also provides the happy occasion for a “homecoming” reunion of several filmmakers who studied at Tisch School of the Arts before they launched their fruitful careers as filmmakers, curators, critics, and educators.

The event is co-organized by Zhen Zhang (Director of Asian Film & Media Initiative), Cristina Cajulis (Events Coordinator, Cinema Studies), Yu-shan Huang, and Jane Yu. Special thanks to Women Make Waves International Film Festival and Tingwu Cho. Thanks to Greg Helmstetter and student projectionists for technical support.

This event is free and open to the public. RSVP required. Non-NYU persons will need to show government-issued photo ID for building access.

RSVP REQUIRED

Netflix and East Asian Audio-Visual Culture–cfp

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Call for Papers for a special issue of Global Storytelling: Journal of Digital and Moving Images 4.2 (December 2024)

Netflix and East Asian Audio-visual Culture

In the early 21st century, Netflix fundamentally shifted the delivery model for global audio-visual content, and its unique characteristic as a program curator has made it a cultural mediator with the ability to shape local content productions. As global OTT (over-the-top) platforms, including Netflix and Disney+, play a pivotal role in cultural production, East Asian cultural products such as dramas, reality shows, films, and animation have experienced changes in genres, themes, visual style, and narratives. Netflix originals or licensed cultural programs are circulated simultaneously in many countries, compelling local cultural creators to adjust their production norms to attract Netflix and Netflix users. In South Korea, for example, the local audio-visual industry started to develop zombie, sci-fi, adventure, and dark thriller; and there are now a multitude of television dramas and films that focus on these genres and themes in the era of global OTTs. Netflix has also driven in changes in audiences’ consumption habits in Hong Kong, Singapore, and other countries. East Asian cultural creators have re-oriented their standards in cultural production. On the other hand, Netflix has also been on the constant lookout for new genres and themes that have proven successful elsewhere including in East Asia. In Japan, for instance, based on the global success of several Anime products, Netflix plans to develop live-action and animated feature films originating from the country. Continue reading Netflix and East Asian Audio-Visual Culture–cfp →