Independent Cinema in China: State, Market and Film Culture

Censored, marginalized and largely inaccessible, independent cinema in the People's Republic of China is widely recognised as an important achievement of recent Chinese cinema. It functions as a dynamic force to challenge the concepts of art, truth, reality and ethics constructed in official discourses and to explore alternative spaces, places, voices, and images that have been ignored or distorted in mainstream media. However, following a nationwide shut-down of independent film festivals and organizations in the PRC since 2012, there is a real danger that these works and the material culture surrounding them may disappear. This project aims to preserve independent films made in the PRC in the past three decades and to conduct comprehensive research into this unique but under-researched film culture.

This four-year international project is led by film scholars from UK and China (Sabrina Qiong Yu, Newcastle University; Chris Berry, King's College London; Luke Robinson, Sussex University; Xianmin Zhang, Beijing Film Academy), all active researchers and steadfast advocates of Chinese independent cinema who have excellent personal and professional connections with Chinese independent film circles, and supported by a Research Assistant. We will work closely with a large number of independent filmmakers and curators as well as a range of industry partners, supported by a multi-national Advisory Board comprised of 10 prominent filmmakers, curators and academics of Chinese independent cinema around the world.

We want to understand how Chinese independent cinema has been produced, circulated and received, as well as how its relationship to the state and the market has shaped this cinema. To that end, we will conduct a questionnaire-based survey of 200 independent filmmakers and semi-structured interviews with 25 selected representative directors. We will also survey audiences for independent films and interview other stakeholders such as the curators of film festivals and the CEOs of film companies/funds which are committed to the production and distribution of independent films. We will communicate the findings to academic audiences via a monograph, an academic conference and a subsequent anthology, academic journal articles and conference panels/papers.

We will launch the first Chinese independent film archive in Europe in which a rare collection of Chinese independent films and a disappearing film production and exhibition culture are preserved. It will not only safeguard cultural heritage for future generations, but also keep an 'alternative', faithful record of social changes and historical trauma in socialist and post-socialist China that is unobtainable elsewhere. We will advocate the use of independent films, documentaries in particular, as first-hand sources for research on and teaching of modern China within higher education. The first Chinese independent film online database, a YouTube channel and other digital platforms will be set up to enhance awareness of Chinese independent films and stimulate interest in the archive.

The project will also benefit non-academic communities such as filmmakers, film industries and the general public. To enable this, we will collaborate with leading industry partners Sheffield Doc/Fest and CNEX in China to hold a Sheffield Doc/Fest-CNEX Documentary Summit in Beijing and panel discussions on UK-China co-production at Sheffield Doc/Fest in the UK. We will curate a UK film tour together with local art-house cinemas in four different UK cities as well as China Visual Festival (London), Chinese Film Forum (Manchester), and the Institute for Screen Industries Research at Nottingham University. To mark the launch of the film archive, there will be a film week at Newcastle's Tyneside Cinema, a symposium at Newcastle University, and a multi-media exhibition on the history of Chinese independent cinema over three decades at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead.

This project has excellent potential to achieve considerable social and cultural impact beyond academic communities. The team has identified at least six potential groups of societal beneficiaries.

1) Chinese independent filmmakers: One of the primary goals of this project is to help Chinese independent filmmakers who are currently struggling with the pressure from both the state and the market, and suffering from a lack of exhibition channels and visibility. The first archive of Chinese independent cinema in Europe will preserve many otherwise uncollected works and the testimonies of independent filmmakers. An online database with detailed information on films and filmmakers, a YouTube channel that provides free viewing of some films, and keynote talks & panel discussions at Sheffield Doc/Fest will not only greatly increase the visibility of Chinese independent filmmakers and help their work to reach a wider audience, but also potentially attract foreign investment and create future working opportunities for them.

2) Film industries in China and the UK: the project will reveal the challenges and opportunities facing Chinese independent cinema, and offer useful examples and advice to the emerging grassroots film companies in China who are interested in producing films with artistic quality and social significance but struggle to survive in a film market dominated by commercial blockbusters. It will also enhance the understanding of Chinese independent film culture in the UK, and help the UK film industry to identify new Chinese film talents for potential co-production. The project will set up various platforms for cross-cultural communication and international networking, and inspire new forms of artistic and social expression.

3) International film festival curators and programmers: the project and its continuous existence as an online database and a physical archive afterwards will benefit programmers and curators of international film festivals who have found sourcing non-state-sanctioned films from China much harder since the nation-wide crack-down on the indie sector in the past few years. Instead of traveling to different parts of China, they can come to the Newcastle archive to identify the latest talents and works.

4) NGOs and charities: Chinese independent cinema offers the portrayal of marginalised or repressed social groups (e.g. sexual minorities, coal miners, petitioners, the disabled and migrant workers), and the discussion of neglected social issues such as environmental problems and social injustice. Research into this cinema can enhance the understanding of contemporary Chinese society from NGOs within and outside China, charities and private sector organisations so that they can respond to the needs of all sorts of disadvantaged or victimized communities.

5) Overseas Chinese citizens including students and scholars: due to their quasi-underground status and inaccessibility, Chinese independent films are hardly seen in China. With a huge number of Chinese students and visiting scholars coming to the UK every year, this project can provide overseas Chinese with an uncensored image of China, raise their awareness of current social problems, and potentially facilitate the social reform in politically stagnant China.

6) The wider general public: with China's rapid growth into the world's second largest economy and growing political power on the international stage, an increasing global interest in China has often been accompanied by a lack of information transparency, misunderstandings and unbalanced perceptions. This project offers a perfect window to look into China's recent history and reality, and has the potential to shift the public's attitudes, awareness and understanding regarding a range of important issues faced by China such as human rights, environmental crises, public wellbeing and so on.