Chinese Independent Films Research Articles

Tracing Evolution and Communication Dynamics in Chinese Independent Documentary Films (2012-2022): A Systematic Review of Genre, Censorship, Culture, and Distribution

In the last decade, Chinese independent documentaries have witnessed a profound transformation. While mainstream Chinese documentaries have been extensively examined in scholarly research, there remains a noticeable gap in the comprehensive analysis of independent documentaries from 2012 to 2022. This study employs a systematic literature review methodology to provide a holistic assessment of the evolution of Chinese independent documentaries during this pivotal period. It delves into various dimensions, encompassing the impact of political dynamics, funding mechanisms, the selection of film themes, ethical considerations, distribution challenges, and documentary filmmakers’ perspectives. By conducting a rigorous qualitative analysis of approximately 47 scholarly articles from the specialized journal Chinese Independent Cinema Observer and the academic database Scopus, this research reveals the nuanced progression of independent documentaries within China’s dynamic cultural, social, and political context. Preliminary insights from the selected research articles indicate a focused understanding and interest in societal hotspots and political censorship issues within independent documentaries. Furthermore, this research focuses on the unique challenges and opportunities encountered by Chinese independent documentaries during the phases of dissemination and reception. This study offers scholars a profound comprehension of the Chinese independent documentary landscape and provides invaluable strategic insights for producers and distributors.

Talking heads in Chinese independent cinema: discourses and speaking rights

ABSTRACT The talking head has been widely used within Chinese independent cinema. On the one hand, the practice is criticized by Chinese independent filmmakers for serving the propagandist ends of Chinese state television; on the other, it is also introduced by Chinese independent cinema to attest to the social sufferings experienced by marginal people. In this paper, the theory of intertextuality is adopted to analyse the use of talking heads within both Chinese Sixth Generation cinema and independent Chinese documentary, while exploring the collective documentary impulse of Chinese independent filmmaking. I shall develop the following two arguments: (1) the ideology of talking heads is shaped by the “linguistic context” of film production. They can serve official and grassroots discourses placed within an authoritative and a private cinematic context, respectively. (2) Both Chinese independent documentary and feature-length films adopt talking heads to deliver marginal voices, which advance the speaking rights of both Chinese independent filmmaking and voiceless social groups.

Filmless Festivals and Dragon Seals: Independent Cinema in China

Markus Nornes, who documented the Chinese independent film festival scene for Film Quarterly in 2009, returns with a report on the changes this sector has experienced in the intervening decade. Borrowing a metaphor from Beijing Film Academy professor Zhang Xianmin, he offers an “update from the ruins,” as government censorship and an absence of institutional support has taken a toll on what had been a thriving festival scene. Nornes reviews the challenges faced by the Beijing International Film Festival, and its innovative responses to them, and finds hope for the future at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival, and the West Lake International Documentary Film Festival.

In Search of an Alternative Feminist Cinema: Gender, Crisis, and the Cultural Discourse of Nation Building in Chinese Independent Films

Chinese feminist cinema in the postsocialist era is shaped by the grand narrative of nation building that glamorizes urban professional career women and their contributions to economic marketization and globalization. Such cinematic overemphasis on urban women proves inadequate as it creates a disturbing silence about the diasporic existence of non-urban women. This uneven condition demands the creation of an alternative cinematic feminism that visualizes the diversity of Chinese women and represents the heterogeneity of feminist cinematic expressions and female experiences. Using Li Yu’s Lost in Beijing (2007, Pingguo 苹果) and Li Yang’s Blind Mountain (2007, Mang shan 盲山) as case studies, this essay investigates how Chinese independent films re-negotiate female gender identity and crisis through commercialized visual realism and social intervention while in reality the postsocialist grand narrative of nation building redefines the living conditions of female migrant workers and women of limited resources.

Personal camera as public intervention: remembering the Cultural Revolution in Chinese independent documentary films

Chinese independent documentary films about the Cultural Revolution provide alternative memories to official and popular accounts. In addition to the contestations of memories between the official and non-official and between the mainstream/dominant and the independent/marginal, there lies a third pair of contestation: between the public and the private, which also encompasses the previous two antitheses. To frame it in another way, what is allowed in public and what has to be restricted can be conceived as a key to understanding negotiations and discourses about the Cultural Revolution, as well as the status of independent documentary films in China. This paper explores how Chinese independent documentary films recall the past and bring private memories into public through different aesthetic approaches, reconfiguring discourses around the Cultural Revolution and the documentary films’ independent status.

A madwoman in the art gallery? Gender, mediation and the relation between life and art in post-1989 Chinese independent film

The figure of the artist is an important subject of Chinese independent documentary and feature film, but while some of the aesthetic and political implications of this figure have been discussed, its gender dimensions have received little attention. This article puts gender at the centre of an investigation of documentary representations of troubled artists, beginning with Wu Wenguang's Liulang Beijing [Bumming in Beijing, 1990] and ending with Gu Yaping's Qin'ai de [My Dear, 2007]. The figure of the troubled artist serves as a trope of the entanglement of immediacy and mediation that constitutes the core formal tension of Chinese independent documentary film. How various instances of this figure are inflected by notions of gender difference, how they embody the tension between art and everyday life and between madness and sanity, and the kinds of performance they engage in are fundamental questions that help reassess the heterogeneous ‘poetics of presence’ shaping this vibrant field of contemporary visual culture.

Chinese Independent Documentary Films: Alternative Media, Public Spheres and the Emergence of the Citizen Activist

:This article argues that contemporary independent documentary filmmaking in China has been used as a tool by Chinese citizens to intervene in the public sphere and to provoke social change. I therefore propose to look at the phenomenon of Chinese video activism under the umbrella of alternative media. In particular, I take into consideration the “rhizomatic” media approach, which focuses on the interaction of alternative media with authority, the market and civil society. The case studies I present consist of several documentary projects completed between 2004 and 2010 that opened up spaces of dialogue between filmmakers and local authority, mass media and civil society. The paper claims that documentary films have an impact on audiences, whose members are consequently motivated to engage in discussion and action. I argue that activist video-making in China is reshaping the identity of urban citizens: through filmmaking, urban citizens claim their right to access information and demonstrate their will to participate and intervene in social issues.

Chinese film spaces: the social locations and media of urban independent screen consumption

Drawing upon rich detailed data collected through ethnography in the capital city of Beijing, China, this article examines the social locations and media used for watching Chinese independent films. Three key research questions frame the article. (1) Who are the audiences of Chinese independent films? (2) Under what circumstances do they watch the films? (3) What are the broader social consequences of watching independent films in China? Empirically, I focus on two particular locations of consumption – film clubs and independently organized film festivals, and two media of viewing – DVDs and the Internet. Analytically, I argue that consumption enables the production of Chinese independent films in two ways. First, literally, by providing knowledge, resources and personal networks for independent film production. Second, metaphorically, by making Chinese independent films become social reality by providing opportunities for circulation and exhibition of the officially illegal cultural product. I conclude the article by reflecting upon the utility of the emerging concept of prosumption for analysing film consumption in China.

Re-imagining Civil Society in Contemporary Urban China: Actor-Network-Theory and Chinese Independent Film Consumption

Extending recent seminal studies that focus on networks of multiple actors in Chinese civil society instead of state-society dichotomy, this article explores independent film consumption in contemporary urban China. It shows how a collectiveentity composed of independent films, people, and discourses is assembled to become civil society, despite the continuing existence of government restrictions on independently produced films. Relying on data collected through ethnography set in the capital city of Beijing, I use the “three moves” suggested by Bruno Latour’s recent description of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to follow the actors themselves. I first “localize the global” concept of civil society and its attendant notion of state-society relations by discussing an independently organized film festival in which I participated and observed. Second, by discussing an empirical case of DVD stores, through which independent films circulate, I “redistribute the local” by detailing the processes in which particular local sites of the retail spaces of DVDs are connected to “actants” dispatched throughout the globe. Finally, I “connect sites” by putting to work the conceptual tools provided by Latour including “connectors,” “mediators,” and “plasma.” I conclude by arguing that ANT contributes to a seemingly modest, but essential political task of preventing the hasty closure of what is to be included in the collective, as well as how the collective is to be composed. In the case I examine, ANT clears the path for the future reassembling of civil society in contemporary urban China.

Filming Space/Mapping Reality in Chinese Independent Documentary Films

This article is a general attempt to sum up and challenge some of the issues the notion of Space raises when in contact with the Chinese independent documentary film movement. I will focus my analysis on how this concept influences the choice of topics, the roles it plays during the shooting process and how the representation of space in these films is linked to the emergence of a new documentary aesthetic and practice.