Books

Uniting filmmakers and practice-led researchers, Essay Film and Narrative Techniques: Screen-writing Non-fiction explores the evolving language of essay film through various methods of narration, including production diaries, self-critiques, interviews and theoretical analyses. Including canonical works and unconventional approaches, this collection emphasizes how essay films blur the lines between personal expression and collective storytelling.

Renowned scholars and practitioners unpack the conceptual and contextual dimensions of screenwriting for essay film, considering its role as both a cinematic and research tool. Whether reflecting on the personal camera or hybrid creative methodologies, the essays provide invaluable insights into how essay films are written and realized.

With its interdisciplinary scope and innovative approach, this is a valuable and exciting resource for academics, filmmakers and students of documentary and experimental cinema, offering a nuanced understanding of how screenwriting shapes nonfiction storytelling.

‘My’ Self on Camera is the first book to explore first person narrative documentary in China’s post-Mao era. Since the emergence of the individual as an ever more important social figure in China, this mode of independent filmmaking and cultural practice has become increasingly significant. Combining the approach of cultural ethnography, interviews, and textual analysis of selected films, this study examines the motivations, key aesthetic features and ethical tensions of presenting the self on camera, as well as the socio-political, cultural and technical conditions surrounding its practice. This book problematises how the sense of self and subjectivities are understood in contemporary China, and provides illuminating new insights on the changing notion of the individual through cinema.

This innovative collection of essays on twenty-first century Chinese cinema and moving image culture features contributions from an international community of scholars, critics, and practitioners. Taken together, their perspectives make a compelling case that the past decade has witnessed a radical transformation of conventional notions of cinema. Following China's accession to the WTO in 2001, personal and collective experiences of changing social conditions have added new dimensions to the increasingly diverse Sinophone media landscape, and provided a novel complement to the existing edifice of blockbusters, documentaries, and auteur culture. The numerous 'iGeneration' productions and practices examined in this volume include 3D and IMAX films, experimental documentaries, animation, visual aides-mémoires, and works of pirated pastiche. Together, they bear witness to the emergence of a new Chinese cinema characterized by digital and, trans-media representational strategies, the blurring of private/public distinctions, and dynamic reinterpretations of the very notion of 'cinema' itself.

This Special Issue of Studies in Documentary Film focuses on a specific practice in non-western documentary cinema, women’s first person documentary from East Asia. Investigating this exciting area with aesthetically innovative, and socially challenging practices, it aims to contribute to our knowledge of the ways in which women filmmakers use their cameras to access both intimate and public spaces, and how first person filmmaking practices help us understand what it means to be a feminist, a filmmaker, and most of all, a woman, in this region.

The Chinese version of The Personal Camera: subjective cinema and the essay film, by Laura Rascaroli. Beijing: Xincheng Publisher, 2014

​编：余天琦 Kiki Tianqi Yu

​译者：洪家春，吴丹，马然