Independent Chinese documentary : alternative visions, alternative publics / [electronic resource]
Edwards, Dan,1973-author.
Analyses how independent documentaries are forging a new public sphere in today's China. There has been an explosion in Chinese independent documentary making since the turn of the twenty-first century. How are we to understand this vibrant burst of activity? This timely study is based on detailed interviews with Chinese documentary makers rarely available in English, and insights gained by the author while working as a journalist in Beijing. Through detailed analyses of key contemporary documentary titles, it reveals the ways in which independent films probe, question and challenge the dominant ideas and narratives circulating in China's state-sanctioned media.Key features: A detailed account of one of the world's most active, vibrant and challenging contemporary documentary sectors * Draws extensively on first-hand interviews with filmmakers * Offers in-depth, critical analyses of China's most challenging contemporary independent documentaries * Discusses China's state-sanctioned film and television sectors to cast new light on how the official public sphere is shaped and guided by the state
Contents; Figures; Acknowledgements; A Note on Terminology; Introduction; Defining Independence in a Chinese Context; Engineering Hegemony in Today's China; China's Official Public Sphere as an Arena of Hegemonic Influence; What Distinguishes Independent Documentaries from Statesanctioned Representations?; Chapter 1 - From Underground Practice to Alternative Public Sphere; The New Documentary Movement as an Underground Filmmaking Practice; Independent Documentary Culture in the Digital Era; Chapter 2 - A Public of Viewer-producers
U-thèque: Screening Group, Training Centre and Production CollectiveParticipatory Documentary Practice: Meishi Street; Participatory Documentary as Rural Reconstruction; Chapter 3 - Remembering the Past, Reclaiming History; The Chinese Amnesia and Official Historical Representations; Reclaiming the Historical Subject: Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul; Reclaiming the Public Memorial: Though I Am Gone; A Growing Body of Historical Testimony; Chapter 4 - The Right to be Public and a Public withRights; Documentary and the Rights Defence Movement; Provoking an Interclass Response: Taishi Village
AIDS and Activism: The Central Plains and Care and LoveThe Impact of Activist Documentaries in Contemporary China; Chapter 5 - The Ethics of Encounter in Chinese Documentary; The Perceived Crisis of Values in Contemporary China; Complicity and Reflexivity: Paper Airplane; The Ethics of Portraying the Powerless: Petition; Ethical Questions as Political Threat in China's Alternative Public Spheres; Afterword - Future Prospects for the Alternative Public Sphere of Independent Documentary; Notes; Introduction; Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Afterword
Glossary of Chinese TermsFilmography; TV Series; Bibliography; Online News Sources; Reports by Governments, Non-governmental Organisations and International Bodies; Anonymously Written Websites; Unpublished Interviews Conducted by the Author; Index
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 30 Oct 2017).
Analyses how independent documentaries are forging a new public sphere in today's China. There has been an explosion in Chinese independent documentary making since the turn of the twenty-first century. How are we to understand this vibrant burst of activity? This timely study is based on detailed interviews with Chinese documentary makers rarely available in English, and insights gained by the author while working as a journalist in Beijing. Through detailed analyses of key contemporary documentary titles, it reveals the ways in which independent films probe, question and challenge the dominant ideas and narratives circulating in China's state-sanctioned media.Key features: A detailed account of one of the world's most active, vibrant and challenging contemporary documentary sectors * Draws extensively on first-hand interviews with filmmakers * Offers in-depth, critical analyses of China's most challenging contemporary independent documentaries * Discusses China's state-sanctioned film and television sectors to cast new light on how the official public sphere is shaped and guided by the state
Documentary films