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'The Future of Chinese Cinema'

The I-Program, 2006

Schedule for Future of Chinese Cinema Conference
Room 137, Robert Webster Building
University of New South Wales
1-3 April 2006

Saturday, 1 April 2006

9:00-9:30am: Welcome, introductions, morning coffee/ tea
Olivia Khoo, UNSW
Sean Metzger, Duke University

9:30-11:30am: Session 1: Realism and Independent Documentaries:
Chris Berry, “To be Real: Jishizhuyi and the Chinese Documentary Movement”.
Dai Jinhua, tba.

11:30-1:30pm: Session 2 – Diegetic and Extra-Diegetic Star Discourse:
Joyleen Christensen (University of Newcastle), “Man on a Mission: Porous Borders and Andy Lau Tak-Wah's Urgent Regeneration of Chinese Cinema.”
Jon Kowallis (University of New South Wales), “Lu Xun on Film: the “True Story” of Governmental and Independent Filmmakers”.

1:30pm-2:30pm: Lunch on-site

2:30-4:30pm: Session 3 – Recent Genres (New Years Films):
Shuyu Kong (University of Sydney), “Genre Film, Media Corporations, and the Future of Chinese Commercial Film: The Case of ‘New Year Comedies’”.
Ying Zhu (City University of New York), “Feng Xiaogang’s New Year Films”.

5-7pm: Cocktail reception, The John Niland Scientia Building Foyer
Welcome by Professor Annette Hamilton, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Professor Martyn Lyons, Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of New South Wales

Sunday, 2 April 2006

9:30-10am: Morning coffee/ tea

10am-12pm: Session 4 – Transnational Chinese Production:
Tina Chen (University of Manitoba), “Socialist Modernity and Transnational Cinematic Practices: Soviet Film and the Chinese Film Industry during the Maoist Period”.
Kwai-Cheung Lo (Hong Kong Baptist University), “Hong Kong Ghost in the Japanese Shell: Cross-Racial Performance and Transnational Chinese Cinema”.

12-1pm: Lunch on-site

1-3pm: Session 5 – Womens’ films:
Denise Tang (Hong Kong Polytechnic University), “Emerging Hong Kong Lesbian Representations: A Case Study of the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival 2004 and 2005”.
Louisa Wei (City University of Hong Kong), “Her Stories, Her Films: A Critical Review of Chinese Cinema.”

3-3:30pm: Coffee/ tea break

3:30-5:30pm: Session 6 – Interrogating the National Frame:
David Eng (Rutgers University), “Expressive Desire in Stanley Kwan's Lan Yu”.
Guo-Juin Hong (Duke University), “Island of No Return: Cinematic Narration as Retrospection in Wang Tong and New Taiwanese Cinema”.

7:30pm: Conference Dinner for participants
Golden Century Seafood Chinese Restaurant, Sussex Street, Chinatown

* Please note that daylight savings time ends on Sunday 2nd April at 3am. Please turn your clocks back one hour on Sunday night.

Monday, 3 April 2006

9:30-11:30am: Session 7 – New screening technologies and practices:
Paola Voci (University of Otago), “From Silver Screens to Small–and Smaller!–Screens: Cinema and Contemporary Chinese Media Culture”.
Laikwan Pang (Chinese University of Hong Kong), “From BitTorrent Piracy to Creative Industries: The Changing Meanings of Hong Kong Cinema”.

11:30am-1:00pm: Session 8 and Closing Remarks

Olivia Khoo and Sean Metzger

Confirmed participants include:
Chris Berry, Professor of Film and Television Studies at Goldsmiths College, UK.

Location: Room 137, Robert Webster Building (G14), University of New South Wales
(See UNSW Campus Maps.)

Information Archive

Call for Papers READ MORE

The School of Media, Film and Theatre, and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences I-Program, 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.

Call for Papers

Applications are now invited from participants wishing to join a seminar on this theme to be held from 1-3 April 2006. This will be a symposium of approximately 20 scholars, focused on the presentation and discussion of pre-circulated papers.

The seminar will be convened by Dr. Olivia Khoo (Media, Film and Theatre, UNSW) and Dr. Sean Metzger (English and Theatre, Duke University). An Advisory Committee, which will consider applications from potential participants, will also consist of Professor Philip Bell, Dr. Darrell Davis, Dr. Jon Kowallis, Dr. Larissa Heinrich, and Dr. Andrew Field.

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.

Contact Dr Olivia Khoo for more information at

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