Skip to main content
Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

Edinburgh University Press

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
book: Independent Chinese Documentary
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Independent Chinese Documentary

Alternative Visions, Alternative Publics
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2015

About this book

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? Are these films brave expressions of dissidence? Or a more complex attempt to expand the terms of public discourse in the People’s Republic? 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. It considers the relationship between independent documentaries and China’s official film and television sectors, exploring the ways in which independent films probe, question and challenge the dominant ideas and narratives circulating in the state-sanctioned public sphere. Detailed analyses of key contemporary documentaries reveal a sustained attempt to forge an alternative public sphere where the views and experiences of petitioners, AIDS sufferers, dispossessed farmers and the victims of Mao’s repression can be publicly aired for a small, but steadily growing, public.

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    v
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    List of Figures

    vii
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Acknowledgements

    ix
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    A Note on Terminology

    xi
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Introduction

    1
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    1 From Underground Practice to Alternative Public Sphere

    27
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    2 A Public of Viewer-producers

    45
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    3 Remembering the Past, Reclaiming History

    69
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    4 The Right to be Public and a Public with Rights

    96
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    5 The Ethics of Encounter in Chinese Documentary

    127
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Afterword: Future Prospects for the Alternative Public Sphere of Independent Documentary

    156
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    159
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Glossary of Chinese Terms

    177
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Filmography

    179
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    TV Series

    182
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Bibliography

    183
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    195
    Download PDF

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
February 15, 2022
eBook ISBN:
9780748695638
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
216
View content
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748695638
eBook ISBN: 9780748695638
Keywords for this book
Film; Media & Cultural Studies
Audience(s) for this book
For universities and colleges of further and higher education
Downloaded on 17.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780748695638/html
Scroll to top button