Date: 27 November 2015
Time: 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Venue: Room 101, Leung Kau Kui Building, CUHK
Speaker: Prof. Gina Marchetti (The University of Hong Kong)
Registration: http://goo.gl/forms/YTRjG6j8Al
From Bollywood to Hallyu, from the rising cinemas of West and Central Asia to the Chinese “new waves,” Asia provides world screens with some of its most dynamic, innovative, and provocative fiction, documentary, animated, experimental, and hybrid films. However, the concept of “Asian cinema” too often conjures up visions of staid Hollywood imitations, turgid propaganda, and exercises in national chauvinism. The definition of “Asian cinema,” in fact, lags behind what is actually happening on set as well as on location, in the cinema as well as on the computer screen. Not only have regional flows intensified in recent years, but global currents have swept Asia in heretofore unimagined ways. Transnational co-productions seem to be the norm rather than the exception and diasporic filmmaking has found a voice that may be “Asian” to a degree but located in Europe, America, Australia, or elsewhere. New technologies enable the dissemination of films far outside the established art house and festival circuits of the past. New institutions (archives, museums), alternative funding sources (NGOs, festivals), and cutting-edge motion picture media (Web 2.0, cell phone videos) come together to make established notions of “Asian cinema” pass?. There is clearly a pressing need for a reassessment of the utility of the term to regional studies of Asia as well as to the disciplines of film, media, and cultural studies. This presentation considers the utility of the concept of “Asia” in light of the enormous political changes roiling the continent with a focus on Hong Kong cinema as a notable example.
Gina Marchetti teaches courses in film, gender and sexuality, critical theory and cultural studies. Her books include Romance and the “Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction (University of California, 1993), Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s INFERNAL AFFAIRS—The Trilogy (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007), From Tian’anmen to Times Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screens (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), and The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens: Race, Sex, and Cinema (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012). She has co-edited several anthologies, including Hong Kong Film, Hollywood and the New Global Cinema, with Tan See-Kam (London: Routledge, 2007), Chinese Connections: Critical Perspectives on Film, Identity and Diaspora, with Peter X Feng and Tan See-Kam (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009), and, most recently, Hong Kong Screenscapes: From the New Wave to the Digital Frontier, with Esther M. K. Cheung and Tan See-Kam (HKUP, 2011). Her current research interests include women filmmakers in the HKSAR, China and world cinema, and contemporary trends in Asian and Asian American film culture.
All are welcome. Registration is required by 25 November 2015.
Website: www.cuhk.edu.hk/crs/ccs
Enquiry: 3943 1255 / cuccs@cuhk.edu.hk