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Abstract:

In the age of transnational media and circulation, the New Documentary Movement in China has emerged as an important medium in examining some of the social, political, and historical disjunctions in contemporary Chinese society. The New Documentary Movement can be seen as integral part of those social developments and also as part of a historical movement.  The documentary filmmakers use their style to maintain a dialogue with society. This dialogue includes investigation, interpretation, and intervention. The significance of the New Documentary Film Movement lies in the activist engagement of the filmmakers with the emotional and living conditions of Chinese people in all walks of life.

In the age of transnational media and circulation, the New Documentary Movement in China has emerged as an important medium in examining some of the social, political, and historical disjunctions in contemporary Chinese society. The New Documentary Movement can be seen as integral part of those social developments and also as part of a historical movement.  The documentary filmmakers use their style to maintain a dialogue with society. This dialogue includes investigation, interpretation, and intervention. The significance of the New Documentary Film Movement lies in the activist engagement of the filmmakers with the emotional and living conditions of Chinese people in all walks of life.

Xinyu Lu is Professor and Chair of the Broadcasting Department, School of Journalism, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.She is widely regarded as the leading authority on Chinese documentary film whose many writings in the field include the publication Documenting China: The New Documentary Movement  (Beijing, SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2003). Professor Lu is the Dean of the broadcasting department of the Journalism School at Fudan University, where she also serves as senior research fellow. Her research is focused on the relationship between Chinese visual culture, mass media and the social development. Her new book Writing and What It Obscures has recently published (Guangxi Normal University Press, 2008), Originally trained in literature, she joined the faculty of Fudan University in 1993, shortly after completing the university’s Ph.D. program in Western aesthetics. Professor Lu will spend a year as a visiting scholar in the department of cinema studies at New York University where she will continue her research on Western documentary theories and methods.