'My' Self on Camera: First Person Documentary Practice in an Individualising China (Edinburgh Studies in East Asian Film) - Softcover

Yu, Kiki Tianqi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1474474128 ISBN 13: 9781474474122

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2020

Synopsis

‘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.

About this title

About the Author

Dr Kiki Tianqi Yu is a Senior Lecturer in Film at Queen Mary University of London, as well as a writer, filmmaker, and curator. She is the author of ‘My’ Self on Camera: First Person Documentary Practice in an Individualising China (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), the co-editor of China’s iGeneration: Cinema and Moving Image Culture for the 21 Century (Bloomsbury 2014) and a special issue on East Asian women’s personal cinema for Studies in Documentary Film (2020 14:1). Kiki’s award-winning films include Memory of Home (2009), China’s van Goghs (2016) , and The Two Lives of Li Ermao (2019. Her curatorial projects include “Dancing with Water: women’s cinema from contemporary China” (Feb-Apr 2024) at various venues in London.

From the Back Cover

‘Understanding first person filmmaking in China as always already political, this study breaks new ground in considering the particularities of this personal form of filmmaking as it emerges in the late 20th Century China. With in-depth case studies written by a scholar who is also a filmmaker, this study is a welcome reassessment of the predominantly western-oriented scholarship on subjective/autobiographical/first person film. Tianqi Yu’s book is a major contribution to the field.’Alisa Lebow, University of Sussex‘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.Kiki Tianqi Yu is a filmmaker, scholar, and film curator. Her work includes feature documentary film China’s van Goghs (2016), and edited volume China’s iGeneration (2014). She is currently Lecturer in Filmmaking at the University of the West of Scotland.Cover image: On the other shore © YU Haibo 1988Cover design:[EUP logo]edinburghuniversitypress.comISBN 978-0-7486-9821-9Barcode

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474474128
• ISBN 13: 9781474474122
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240