Film History and Screen Culture in and beyond Greater China

This collection of essays explores the complexities of film history and screen culture in Greater China, offering new insights and challenging traditional narratives.

This collection brings together contributions from both established and emerging scholars and practitioners from around the globe, aiming to expand the current scholarship on cinemas of the Sinosphere. By highlighting forgotten and emerging aspects of film history, it provides a fresh perspective on the cinematic narratives that have shaped the region. The book not only documents these narratives but also explores their significance in a broader context.

Organized chronologically, the chapters delve into the geographic regions of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. They engage with key issues of film history and screen politics that are often overlooked by the traditional canon of Chinese cinema. The essays tackle important debates surrounding (post)colonialism and (cold) war, examining their sociopolitical impacts on screen culture in these areas. This collection challenges the binary paradigms that have long persisted in historical scholarship, such as the distinctions between left-wing and right-wing cinema, commercial entertainment versus political propaganda, and the mass consumption of genre films against the critical acclaim of New Wave auteurism.

Film History and Screen Culture in and beyond Greater China will appeal to students and researchers in Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, as well as those focused on Asian Studies and Chinese Studies. By revealing the cultural mobility across various geographic and sociopolitical borders, the essays illustrate the intertwined experiences of the past and their ongoing influence on contemporary filmmaking and screen cultures.