[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]
[Commlist] CFP: Rethinking the Tibetan New Wave
Fri Feb 28 12:18:42 GMT 2025
CFP: Rethinking the Tibetan New Wave
Editor: Zhaoyu Zhu, Chris Berry, Lei Hao, and Françoise Robin The
Tibetan New Cinema has emerged since the mid-2000s as a significant
movement centred on minority ethnic identities in Chinese cinema,
offering a unique perspective on the crises of traditional Tibetan
culture and Buddhist spirituality as they face rapid modernisation and
assimilation in Chinese society. It began with the late Pema Tseden’s
2004 film The Silent Holy Stones (ལྷིང་འཇགས་ཀྱི་མ་ཎི་རྡོ་འབུམ།, jingjing
de manishi), one of the first feature films made in the Tibetan language
by a Tibetan director. During a young monk’s homecoming for Tibetan New
Year, his fascination with a new television set explores the tension
between modernity and tradition in Tibetan everyday life.
Scholars have written widely on the Tibetan New Cinema, but so far, they
mostly focus on Pema Tseden himself. One of the earliest articles on
Pema Tseden is Smyer Yu (2014)’s ethnographical reading of Pema’s
filmmaking from the perspective of transnational cinema. He argues that
Pema’s oeuvre reflects the destabilization of the traditional Buddhist
values under globalization and modernization. A 2016 special issue on
Journal of Chinese Cinemas unveiled multiple perspectives on Pema’s
films, including the road movie (Berry), ‘minor cinema’ (Frangville),
the palimpsest (Yau) and the connection between landscape and identities
(Grewal). More recent research examines gendered constructions in
Pema’s films (Robin, 2020; Li, 2023; Pecic, 2023), as well as religion,
everyday life and contemporary social change (Ding, 2017; Yang, 2024).
This emphasis on Pema Tseden’s central position in the Tibetan New
Cinema risks overlooking the nature of contemporary Tibetan filmmaking
as a collective movement. Apart from Pema Tseden’s works, our book will
cover a group of directors including Sonthar Gyal, Lhapal Gyal, Dukar
Tserang, Jigme Trinley, Dargye Tenzin, Khashem Gyal, and more. These
directors were initially part of Pema Tseden’s film crew, but they have
gradually transformed Tibetan filmmaking into a collective group with
distinctive genres and individual styles. Furthermore, this collective
cinema movement has been a source of inspiration for a debate for
Tibetan filmmakers outside the PRC, as well as for both Tibetan and
non-Tibetan filmmakers inside the PRC, including young Han Chinese
filmmakers. A comprehensive understanding of Tibetan filmmaking can
affirm Pema’s central role but must go beyond it.
This edited collection therefore understands contemporary Tibetan
filmmaking as the Tibetan New Wave. Starting from la nouvelle vague in
French filmmaking, the term “new wave” indicates art cinema movements
within certain regions or nations. Although these films are niche
productions, they are more likely than commercial cinema to be exposed
to the global market through film festivals. According to James Tweedie
(2013, 20), new waves adopt the realist style of filmmaking, channel
films toward film audiences with elite taste, and criticise the
dominance of Hollywood filmmaking. On the one hand, thinking about
contemporary Tibetan filmmaking through the lens of new waves continues
the recent debate on the limitations of the over-emphasis on ethnicized,
minority reading of the Tibetan filmmaking in existing scholarship
(Wang, 2024). Pema Tseden himself, as well as Sonthar Gyal, also
stressed that their cinema was going beyond the minority/majority
dichotomy, providing thematic reflections about human societies and
individuals in general. On the other hand, The Tibetan New Wave
understands Tibetan filmmaking as a diverse but unique ecological model
of film production and distribution within global art cinema. This
edited collection hopes to rethink the relationship between the Tibetan
New Wave and other milieus in China and even around the world with its
global impacts. We welcome proposals that explore, but are not limited
to, the following themes:
• The legacies of Pema Tseden on other filmmakers • The
Tibetan new wave beyond Pema Tseden
• The Tibetan new wave films and Tibetan culture
• Thematic constructions of the Tibetan new wave films
• Production and distribution of the Tibetan new wave films
• Global impact of the Tibetan New Wave
• The Tibetan New Wave and new media environment
• The diasporic Tibetan filmmaking • The Tibetan new wave
and film festivals
• Storytelling in the Tibetan new wave films
• Sound design and soundtrack in the Tibetan new wave films
• The future of the Tibetan new wave
We currently have received interest from a world-leading university
press. For any potential contributors, please send chapter proposals
consisting of 300-400 words abstract and a 100-150 words author bio to
(tibetannewwave /at/ gmail.com) by 31 May 2025. The successful applicants will
be notified by 15 July 2025. First drafts of papers are expected to be
6000-7000 words and should be submitted by 01 January 2026.
The editor bios
Zhaoyu Zhu is Teaching Fellow in Communication and Cultural Studies at
University of Nottingham Ningbo China
Chris Berry is Professor of Film Studies at King’s College London
Lei Hao is Teaching Fellow in Digital Media, Communications and Cultural
Studies at University of Nottingham Ningbo China
Françoise Robin is Professor of Tibetan Studies at Inalco (Paris)
References
Berry, C. (2016). Pema Tseden and the Tibetan road movie: Space and
identity beyond the ‘minority nationality film’. Journal of Chinese
Cinemas, 10(2), 89-105.
Ding, S. (2017). Articulating for Tibetan Experiences in the
Contemporary World: A Cultural Study of Pema Tseden’s and Sonthar Gyal’s
Films. Critical Arts, 31 (6), 44 - 58.
Frangville, V. (2016). Pema Tseden's The Search: the making of a minor
cinema. Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 10(2), 106-119.
Grewal, A. (2016). Contested Tibetan landscapes in the films of Pema
Tseden. Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 10(2), 135-149.
Li, Y. (2023). The silent Tibetan women and their visual exclusions in
Pema Tseden’s ‘Tibetan Trilogy’. Visual Studies, 38(3-4), 473-486.
Pecic, Z. L. (2022). Boxed within the frame: Tibetan masculinities in
transformation in Pema Tseden’s Jinpa. New Cinemas: Journal of
Contemporary Film, 20(1), 91-102.
Robin, Françoise. (2020) Women in Pema Tseden’s Films: A So Far Uneasy
Relationship. In Amy Heller and Leigh Miller (eds). The Visual Culture
of Tibet and the Himalayas: Studies in Tibetan Art, Archaeology,
Architecture, Cinema, and Photography from Pre-History to the 21st
Century, Bergen: International Association for Tibetan Studies.
https://asianart.com/articles/robin/.
Smyer Yu, D. (2014). Pema Tseden's Transnational Cinema: Screening a
Buddhist Landscape of Tibet. Contemporary Buddhism, 15(1), 125-144.
Wang, R. (2024). Can Tibetan filmmakers speak more than ethnic identity?
Re-imagining Tibetan New Wave beyond ethnicized reading. Asian Cinema,
35(1-2), 23-39.
Yang, Y. (2024). Pema Tseden's Balloon: Reincarnation of a
Semi-transparent Envelope. Positions:east asia critique, 32(2), 427-451.
Yau, W. P. (2016). Reading Pema Tseden's films as palimpsests. Journal
of Chinese Cinemas, 10(2), 120-134.
---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ commlist.org)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------
[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]
