Symposium: New Interdependencies in Chinese Cinema

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-production has 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, Denmark and among others. On the one hand, Chinese-foreign film collaboration offers an opportunity to both sides to get access to one another’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 the commercial consideration such as Sino-U.S.; however, others might be political or diplomatic considerations like China-Kazakhstan. Topics are not limited to the dimension 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 these cross-cultural dynamics from an interdisciplinary perspective? Speakers will take different perspectives as a means to analyse soft power, cultural diplomacy, cultural and conceptual communications, transnational perceptions and geopolitical circumstance. We believe that this symposium will offer some new insights into Chinese Cinema Studies, global film collaborations and cross-cultural dialogues.

Speakers:

• Dr Keith B. Wagner (UCL)
• Qi AI (Nottingham, PGR)
• Tom Cunliffe (SOAS, PGR)
• Shiying Liu (Nottingham, PGR)
• Xi Liu (Sheffield, PGR)
• Yunzi Han (SOAS, PGR)
• Nashuyuan Serenity Wang (UCL, PGR)
• Xiaoman Zhang (UCL, PGR)
• Qian Poppy Zhai (UCL, PGR)

The confirmed chairs include Professor Lee Grieveson (UCL), Dr Claire Thomson (UCL) and Dr Rossella Ferrari (SOAS).

This symposium is funded by UCL Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) and UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS).

Please download the full programme here.

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

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