Translating Chinese Film Festivals: Three Cases in New York

Abstract

Wong investigates how China and multiple Chinese can be understood through the comparative study of three Chinese film festivals in New York organized by different people, including fans of Chinese/Asian cinema in the West, Asian Americans and Chinese from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The three festivals illuminate how Chinese cinema, which is already heterogeneous and diverse, embodies different meanings for varied stakeholders—festival programmers, filmmakers and audiences—especially when it travels abroad. The study understands processes of globalization through the examination of the different practices involved in international film festivals with an emphasis on Chinese and/or Asian cinema; Wong underscores both the role of film festivals in transmitting information and the ideas of China that can be read in different contexts even within a single cinematic event.