Women in East Asian Cinema
Recent interventions into global film and processes of canonisation have worked to highlight the contributions of women in spaces and discourses previously dominated by men. Yet, despite these social and academic movements, women remain under-represented across vital areas of film culture as recent discussions of the 2019 Oscars and the 2018 Cannes Film Festival have shown. This event aims to highlight the increasing English-language research of contributions by self-identifying women in East Asian cinema and to interrogate questions of representation, labour, and production contexts. For English speaking fans, academics and researchers based outside of East Asia, this work is all the more important as a counter to the limiting and selective problems of international film festivals and regional distribution.
This three-day conference seeks to bring together researchers of women in East Asian cinema for a mix of panels, workshops, and film events with industry guests to continue and develop these ongoing conversations. The event is hosted as a collaboration between the Chinese Film Forum UK (CFFUK), a Manchester-based collective, and HOME, Manchester’s leading independent cross-art venue and cinema. 2019 marks ten years since “Visible Secrets: Hong Kong’s Women Filmmakers”: a film season that was organised by a nascent CFFUK at HOME’s old Cornerhouse venue. This year also marks HOME’s year-long programming initiative “Celebrating Women in Global Cinema” which continues the celebratory, research-led and consciousness raising work of that original Visible Secrets project.
This conference invites papers on a variety of topics concerning women in East Asian cinema. We take a loose definition of “East Asia” – including considerations of diaspora, for example – to encourage submissions from those who may feel limited by narrow geographical boundaries.
Topics include though are not limited to:
- Case studies of directors, producers, and crew members
- Case studies of significant industry figures
- Case studies of stars
- Representation
- Historiographies and redressing the canon
- Generations – i.e. old age, girlhood
- Spaces for women’s voices
- Questions of labour and industry practices
- Production histories
- Herstories
- Women in East Asian diasporas