New Interdependencies in Chinese Cinema: Glocal Production and Cultural Hybridity

18th November 2019

Keynotes: Professor Yingjin Zhang (UC, San Diego) & Professor Chris Berry (KCL)

Convened by Dr Keith B. Wagner (UCL), Qian Poppy Zhai (UCL), Yunzi Han (SOAS), Xi Liu (Sheffield).

Since 2013, China has become the second-largest film market after the United States. The rapid growth of mainland China’s film industry has profoundly impacted and reshaped not only the regional but also the global cultural sphere and new media capital formations. In particular, China-International film co-productions have become an important commercial model in both regional and global film markets. China today has signed film co-production agreements with 21 countries including South Korea, Japan, India, United States, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Greece, UK, France, Luxembourg, and Denmark among others. On the one hand, Chinese-foreign film collaboration offers an opportunity for both sides to gain access to each other’s consumer market and gain more profits than before. On the other hand, under the Belt and Road Initiative, these co-productions are also regarded as an important strategy to achieve China’s soft power goals.

This one-day symposium will discuss various film collaborations and intercultural communications between China and multiple nations in the age of globalisation. Participants will discuss the different purposes and strategies among current Sino-foreign film co-productions. For instance, some co-productions are based on commercial consideration such as the Sino-U.S. example; however, others might be based on political or diplomatic considerations like the China-Kazakhstan example. Topics are not limited to the discussion of film co-productions. Given the major differences between China and other nations in light of their histories, cultures, languages and politics, how can we understand the cross-cultural dynamics of co-productions from an interdisciplinary perspective? Speakers will take different perspectives as a means to analyse soft power, cultural diplomacy, cultural and conceptual communication, transnational perceptions and geopolitical circumstances. We believe that this symposium will offer new insights into Chinese Cinema Studies, global film collaborations and cross-cultural dialogues.

Programme:

9:15-10:00 Registration

Tea and coffee

10:00-11:00 Opening Keynote: Prof Chris Berry (KCL)

“Cinemas of the Sinosphere: Chinese Transnational Cinema Today”

11:00-11:15 Coffee Break

11:15-12:45 Panel 1: Cosmopolitan Age: Collaborations and Challenges in a Flowing Trend (Chair: Dr Claire Thomson, UCL)

Keith B. Wagner (UCL) – “Beyond the Global Nationalistic Film Practices from China: Ai Weiwei as UNICEF Envoy and Chinese Cosmopolitical Figure in Human Flow”

Qian Poppy Zhai (UCL) – “Films Travel with accents: The Past, Present and Future of Sino-Danish Film Collaborations”

Shiying Liu (Louisa) (University of Nottingham) – “The Influence of Sino-US Trade War on Chinese Media Industry”

12:45-13:45 Lunch (speakers and special guests)

13:45-15:15 Panel 2: Sexuality and Aesthetics in Comparative Readings (Chair: Prof Lee Grieveson, UCL)

Yunzi Han (SOAS) – “Representing sexuality on-screen in walled society: a comparative reading of Chinese film Army Nurse and Iranian film The May Lady”

Xi Liu (University of Sheffield) – “Transnational Production and Transcendental Aesthetics: The Experience of Yijing in The Grandmaster and Kung Fu Panda”

Xiaoman Zhang (UCL) – “The ‘Shared World’ Narrative: The Influence of the French New Wave on Chinese Cinema from an Intertextual Approach”

15:15-15:30 Coffee Break

15:30-17:00 Panel 3: Pan-Asian Film Collaborations: Mainland China, Hong Kong and Korea (Chair: Dr Rossella Ferrari, SOAS)

Tom Cunliffe (SOAS) – “Resisting Mainlandisation in Hong Kong-China Co-Productions”

Qi Ai (University of Nottingham) – “A World Without Thieves: Hybrid Genre and Mainland-Hong Kong Collaboration”

Nashuyuan Serenity Wang (UCL) – “Distinct Dialogues in Unison: How Regionalisation Creates the ‘Foreign Familiar/Intimate Otherness’ in Chinese-Korean Film Collaborations”

17:00-17:15 Coffee Break

17:15-18:15 Closing Keynote: Prof Yingjin Zhang (University of California, San Diego)

“Creative Industries, Soft Power and Interconnectivity in Chinese Cinema”

This symposium is funded by UCL Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS), UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS) and British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS).

Registration is free of charge. All welcome but please register to attend.

Image: Kinamnd (Chinaman), Henrik Ruben Genz, Denmark, 2005.