Markus Nornes

Markus Nornes is Professor of Asian Cinema at the University of Michigan. Much of his work has explored the history of Japanese documentary and its theoretical implications. He has also written about nonfiction production in other parts of Asia. In the 1980s and 1990s Nornes worked as a programmer at the Hawai’i International Film Festival and the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, where he organized major retrospectives. Nornes’ research centers on the cinemas of Asia, particularly the non-fiction form. His first book, Japanese Documentary Film, is a history of Japanese documentary to 1946. It examines the emergence of nonfiction, its exploitation by left-wing movements, and ultimately its cooptation by the government in waging war across Asia. He followed this up with a monograph following the life trajectory of director Ogawa Shinsuke, who had a formative impact on Chinese independent documentary. As with his work on Chinese documentary, Nornes is foremost concerned with the political and ethical complexities of producing documentary at times of social tension or political crisis. Nornes also specializes in film translation. He has translated subtitles for Japanese films and written a monograph on the subject entitled, Cinema Babel. He has also published books on the Japanese pink film, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s City of Sadness, Korean Hallyu and social media, Pacific War cinema, and Japanese prewar film theory. Professor Nornes has just finished a book entitled, Brushed in Light: East Asian Cinema and Calligraphy. His next book will be a critical biography of Adachi Masao. Nornes has also directed a number of documentaries, including When We’re Together (2020), The Big House (2018, co-directed with Soda Kazuhiro et al), 911 (2001), and a 5-screen video installation entitled Player Played (2019).