Desta Kyi and the Question of Collective Emotional Labour: Who Sustains Visibility in Chinese Film Festival
-
Wen Gu
Wen Gu is a PhD candidate at Mahidol University and lectures at Shanghai Gench University. She formerly taught at Shanghai Vancouver Film School and was a visiting scholar at Taipei National University of the Arts. Wen holds an MA in Academy of Art University, San Francisco and a BA in Shanghai Theatre Academy. Active in theatre and Chinese-language film, she works as a scriptwriter and producer; in 2024 she judged the WIP session at the Chinese Golden Rooster Film Festival.
Abstract
This paper examines Tibetan female filmmaker Desta Kyi’s navigation of the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festivals to show how emotional and affective labour function as essential strategies for marginalized filmmakers to secure visibility within Han-centric, male-dominated Chinese film industries. Drawing on affect theory and post-authorship frameworks, the study distinguishes macro-level affective labour – the circulation of feeling and “buzz” across festival networks – from micro-level emotional labour – the embodied regulation of affect in interpersonal interactions. Using a semi-autobiographical ethnography (2021–2025) combining interviews, participant observation, and reflexive co-production, the analysis centers on Kyi’s relational work with key supporters (Andy Lau, Jiaran Wang, Dan Wang) and the author’s role as co-producer. Findings demonstrate that visibility, access, and cultural legitimacy are produced not only through artistic output but through sustained, gendered, and often invisible emotional investments that operate as relational capital. The case reveals emotional labour as both vulnerability and strategic agency, reframing festivals as affective infrastructures where power is reproduced and contested. By foregrounding gendered and ethnic dimensions of labour, this paper extends post-authorship debates in the Chinese context and suggests new directions for understanding how marginalized filmmakers assert presence beyond authorship alone.
About the author
Wen Gu is a PhD candidate at Mahidol University and lectures at Shanghai Gench University. She formerly taught at Shanghai Vancouver Film School and was a visiting scholar at Taipei National University of the Arts. Wen holds an MA in Academy of Art University, San Francisco and a BA in Shanghai Theatre Academy. Active in theatre and Chinese-language film, she works as a scriptwriter and producer; in 2024 she judged the WIP session at the Chinese Golden Rooster Film Festival.
References
Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Bochner, Arthur P., and Carolyn Ellis. 2016. Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315545417Search in Google Scholar
Bolton, Sharon C. 2009. “The Lady Vanishes: Women’s Work and Affective Labour.” International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion 2 (1): 72–80. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJWOE.2009.0254.Search in Google Scholar
Colta, Alexandra-Maria. 2019. “Creative and Emotional Labour: Programming Human Rights Film Festivals as Practiced Ethnography.” Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media 17: 128–45. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.17.08.Search in Google Scholar
Czach, Liz. 2004. “Film Festivals, Programming, and the Building of a National Cinema.” The Moving Image 4 (1): 76–88.10.1353/mov.2004.0004Search in Google Scholar
De Valck, Marijke. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.10.1017/9789048506729Search in Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York, NY: Basic Books.Search in Google Scholar
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hesmondhalgh, David, and Sarah Baker. 2008. “Creative Work and Emotional Labour in the Television Industry.” Theory, Culture & Society 25 (7–8): 97–118. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276408097798.Search in Google Scholar
Hochschild, Arlie R. 1983. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. California: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Iordanova, Dina. 2009. “The Film Festival Circuit.” In Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, edited by Dina Iordanova, and R. Rhyne, 23–39. St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies.Search in Google Scholar
Loist, Skadi. 2011. “Precarious Cultural Work: About the Organization of (Queer) Film Festivals.” Screen 52 (2): 268–73. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjr016.Search in Google Scholar
Petrychyn, Jonathan. 2019. Networks of Feeling: Affective Economies of Queer & Feminist Film Festivals on the Canadian Prairies. PhD diss. Toronto, ON: York University.Search in Google Scholar
Petrychyn, Jonathan. 2025. “Film Festivals as Affective Economies: Methodologies f or Following Buzz as Film Festival Affect.” In Shaping Film Festivals in a Changing World: Practice and Methods, edited by D. Ostrowska, and T. Falicov, 1–25. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.10.5117/9789463725576_ch03Search in Google Scholar
Promkhuntong, Wikanda. 2023. Film Authorship in Contemporary Transmedia Culture: The Paratextual Lives of Asian Auteurs. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.10.1515/9789048539239Search in Google Scholar
Tong, Shan, and Ma Ran. 2023. “It Is All about Qingnian Dianying: Post-Independent Chinese Cinema, Auteurism, and the FIRST International Film Festival.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas: 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508061.2023.2286861.Search in Google Scholar
Verhoeven, Deb. 2008. Jane Campion, 1st ed. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203885963Search in Google Scholar
Watson, Amanda, James Ward, and John Fair. 2021. “Staging Atmosphere: Collective Emotional Labour on the Film Set.” Social & Cultural Geography 22 (5): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2021.1871234.Search in Google Scholar
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Realistic Mirror, Public Discourse, and Temporal Markers: Chinese Cinema in 2024
- 2024 Analysis Report on Chinese Film Industry Development
- Chinese Civilizational Symbols and the Artistic Practice of Chinese Western Films
- Chinese Mythology and the Reconstruction of Contemporary Chinese Film Aesthetics
- Asian American Exportation: “Chineseness” and Representation in Sino-US Animated Co-Venture Films
- Local Culture and National Identity: The Conflict and Convergence of Mandarin Films and Cantonese Films in Nanyang in the 1930s
- Desta Kyi and the Question of Collective Emotional Labour: Who Sustains Visibility in Chinese Film Festival
- Chinese Dubbed Film Fans and “Iconic Voices”: Bridging Global and Local Identities Through Voice Actors, 1950s–1980s
- Film Reviews
- Contemporary Reinterpretation of Mythology and National Aesthetics in Cinematic Imagery: A Case Study of Ne Zha 2
- New Explorations in War Film Creation: Reflections on The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death
- Corrigendum
- Corrigendum to: 48 articles published in JCFS from Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2021) – Vol. 4, Issue 1 (2024)
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Realistic Mirror, Public Discourse, and Temporal Markers: Chinese Cinema in 2024
- 2024 Analysis Report on Chinese Film Industry Development
- Chinese Civilizational Symbols and the Artistic Practice of Chinese Western Films
- Chinese Mythology and the Reconstruction of Contemporary Chinese Film Aesthetics
- Asian American Exportation: “Chineseness” and Representation in Sino-US Animated Co-Venture Films
- Local Culture and National Identity: The Conflict and Convergence of Mandarin Films and Cantonese Films in Nanyang in the 1930s
- Desta Kyi and the Question of Collective Emotional Labour: Who Sustains Visibility in Chinese Film Festival
- Chinese Dubbed Film Fans and “Iconic Voices”: Bridging Global and Local Identities Through Voice Actors, 1950s–1980s
- Film Reviews
- Contemporary Reinterpretation of Mythology and National Aesthetics in Cinematic Imagery: A Case Study of Ne Zha 2
- New Explorations in War Film Creation: Reflections on The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death
- Corrigendum
- Corrigendum to: 48 articles published in JCFS from Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2021) – Vol. 4, Issue 1 (2024)
