[csaa-forum] CFP: The Future of Chinese Cinema

[Olivia Khoo]

-Apologies for cross-postings-

Call for Papers: "The Future of Chinese Cinema"
1-3 April 2006, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
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Convenors:
Dr. Olivia Khoo, School of Media, Film and Theatre, UNSW

Dr. Sean Metzger, Department of English and Theatre, Duke University, USA 



Confirmed participants include: 
Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Brown University, USA.
Chris Berry, Professor of Film and Television Studies at Goldsmiths College, UK.

 

The School of Media, Film and Theatre, and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, will be hosting an international symposium to explore the future of transnational Chinese cinema. 

 

After the devastation of the Asian economic crisis, the uncertainty of the Hong Kong handover and the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989, the period of the 1990s and beyond has seen the emergence of a number of fresh new works from the region's filmmakers. China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 has ushered in a whole set of film industry reforms, including the major step of allowing independent film companies to produce films no longer requiring affiliation with any official government studio. Several new independent production and distribution companies have appeared, aiming to compete with State-owned film studios. A new urban cinema is emerging in the PRC and there is also a thriving documentary scene for the first time. The film industries in Taiwan and Hong Kong have also been greatly affected by the reforms taking place in the PRC, especially as the last decade has witnessed a strengthening of the connections and exchanges taking place between the Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan (in terms of personnel, co-financing, and the use of locations). These changes in the filmmaking climate in Greater China over the last few years have meant that the landscape of contemporary Chinese culture, and its cinema, is changing.

 

In this symposium, we will investigate the specifics of these changes and connect them to the historical antecedents that have preceded and enabled these shifts. Such historicization requires work not only on contemporary Chinese cinema, but also on the particular movements of actors and directors in the larger Chinese diaspora that have laid the foundations for China's now more obvious transnational cinematic practices. How, for example, did the movement of actors, directors and producers in the previous decades create a network for the emergence of such a cinema? In what ways does the cinematic industry prior to 1949's transition to state ownership anticipate the cinema of today? What has been the role of Chinese diasporic communities in creating both the notion and actual practice of transnational Chinese cinema? This symposium will bring together a number of fresh new perspectives on the future of transnational Chinese cinema in order to comment on its continued global efficacy. 



Possible topics for discussion:  

* The independent film scenes emerging in Greater China, including the DV revolution.

* The new Chinese documentary movement.

* Films by marginalized sectors of the Chinese community, especially women and queer filmmakers.

* The role of international film festivals in the exhibition of Chinese films.

* The relationship between Chinese cinema and other Asian film cultures, such as those in Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia.

* Diasporic Chinese filmmakers.

* The sustaining problems of film piracy in the region and questions of the distribution of Chinese cinema to Australia and other parts of the world. 

* Migration and its effects on the historical and current practice of Chinese filmmaking. 



Please send a brief curriculum vitae and a one-page summary of your proposed paper by 1 September 2005. Successful applicants will be notified by 1 November 2005 and full papers (5000-8000 words) are due 15 February 2006. Successful applicants will be granted a return economy airfare to Sydney plus contributions to other expenses. Approximately 12 places will be available. See http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/research/conferences/chinese_cinema.html for more information or contact Dr. Olivia Khoo: o.khoo at unsw.edu.au 



--
Dr. Olivia Khoo
School of Media, Film and Theatre
University of New South Wales
Sydney NSW 2052
AUSTRALIA

Ph:+61-2-9385-7735
Fax:+61-2-9662-2335
o.khoo at unsw.edu.au
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