Where in the World are Chinese Women Filmmakers? Transnational China and World Cinema in the Twenty-First Century

Gina Marchetti

doi:10.1163/26659891-01020002

Abstract

Abstract Transnational Chinese women filmmakers reflect the enormous changes happening in the global film industry as well as political, economic, technological, social, and cultural transformations taking place in the region since the beginning of the millennium. An analysis of Hong Kong writer-director Aubrey Lam’s Anna & Anna (2007) uncovers how this film explores the divided psyche of a woman torn between “two systems” that model femininity for women in Singapore and Shanghai in the 21st century. Lam’s narrative touches on issues central to the work of many women working across the Chinese-speaking world including migration, labor relations, postcolonial and postsocialist identities, commodification of female bodies in consumer culture, cross-border sexualities, female desire and domesticity.

Highlights

At the 2021 Academy Awards, Chloé Zhao took center stage as the first ethnic Chinese woman to receive top honors as Best Director
The pioneering Zhao, born in Beijing and based in the United States, has company. When she picked up the Golden Lion in Venice, another female filmmaker born in mainland China, Ann Hui,1 based in Hong Kong, received a lifetime achievement award at the same festival
But the movie world puts limits on filmmakers’ ability to finance, produce, distribute, publicize, and exhibit their work. In her 2015 book, Patricia White gets to the heart of the relationship between women filmmakers and contemporary world cinema by highlighting questions of authorship, festival circulation, art film and aesthetics, screen feminism, national/transnational interventions, female desire, and democracy and women’s rights

Summary

Introduction

At the 2021 Academy Awards, Chloé Zhao took center stage as the first ethnic Chinese woman to receive top honors as Best Director. In her 2015 book, Patricia White gets to the heart of the relationship between women filmmakers and contemporary world cinema by highlighting questions of authorship, festival circulation, art film and aesthetics, screen feminism, national/transnational interventions, female desire, and democracy and women’s rights.

Results

Conclusion