Independent cinema in China is not only made outside the commercial system but also without being submitted for censorship. We know that for several decades it has been the crucible out of which Chinas most exciting new films have flowed. The essays in this volume interrogate what else we think we know. Did it really start with Wu Wenguang and Bumming in Beijing in 1990, or can its roots be traced back much earlier? What are its aesthetics? And its ethics, including of gender and class? Where do audiences watch these films in China and how do they circulate? And, since the 2017 Film Law defined uncensored films as illegal, is independent Chinese cinema still alive? What does it mean today? And does it have a future? The essays in this anthologymany by exciting new scholarsexplore these urgent questions. Most current anthology on this topic; wide-ranging coverage of under-researched topics; accessible
List of Illustrations
Introduction Sabrina Qiong Yu, Chris Berry, Luke Robinson, and Lydia Wu
Genealogies
Chapter
1. The Soil and the Scar: A Genealogy of Photography and Documentary
in Post-Mao China Zoe Meng Jiang
Chapter
2. Video Relics: Hu Jie and the Official Style Maximilian Berwald
Ethics and Aesthetics
Chapter
3. Hu Bos Ethics of Realism Cecķlia Mello
Chapter
4. The Filmmaker as Feminist Jinyan Zeng
Chapter
5. Of Found Objects and Projected Things: The Relational Field in
Wang Bings West of the Tracks and Ma Lis Born in Beijing Yün Peng
Beside the Screen: Independent Cinema as Social Practice
Chapter
6. In Dependence and in Relation: A Relational Sociological Approach
to Chinese Independent Cinema Seio Nakajima
Chapter
7. Distribution and Exhibition of Independent Film in China: Informal
Infrastructure and Its Affordances Chris Berry, Luke Robinson, and Sabrina
Qiong Yu
Chapter
8. Mediating the New Alternative Film Culture: An Ethnographic Study
of Post-Independent Exhibition Practices Since 2017 Xiang Fan
Chapter
9. Three Modes of Independent Creative Documentary Production and the
Rise of the Industrial Mode Kiki Tianqi Yu
Community and Engagement
Chapter
10. Cinematic Fabulation: Trans Representation in Miss Jin Xing
Hongwei Bao
Chapter
11. Village Film and Place-Based Film Archive: Towards an Ecological
and Archival Chinese Independent Documentary Zimu Zhang
Chapter
12. The Ethic of Collaboration: Rethinking Chinese Independent
Cinemas Engagement with Grassroots Creativity Kaiyang Xu
List of Contributors
Index
Chris Berry is Professor of Film Studies at Kings College London. His publications include The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement (Hong Kong University Press, 2010), co-edited with Lisa Rofel and Lu Xinyu. He was also a co-investigator on the AHRC project, Independent Cinema in China 19902017: State, Market, and Film Culture (20192024). Luke Robinson is Associate Professor in Film Studies in the School of Media, Arts, and Humanities at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Independent Chinese Documentary: From the Studio to the Street (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and was a co-investigator on the AHRC project, Independent Cinema in China 19902017: State, Market, and Film Culture (20192024). Sabrina Qiong Yu is Professor of Film and Chinese Studies at Newcastle University, UK. Her research and publications focus on Chinese-language cinema, stardom and performance, gender and sexuality, and censorship. She leads the UK Research Council-funded project (20192024) on Chinese independent cinema and the establishment of the Chinese Independent Film Archive. Lydia Wu is a Newcastle University Academic Track Fellow in Culture and Creative Arts. She leads a five-year research project titled Decolonising Film Curation: Asian Cinemas as Method, supported by Newcastle University. She is also the founder of the Association for Curators and Programmers of Asian Cinemas (ACPAC).
