End Date : March 6, 12:00 am
Multiple Locations,
See Schedule
Columbia University School of the Arts
Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts, C.V. Starr East Asian Library/Dragon Summit Culture Endowment Fund, Dean of Humanities, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Donald Keene Center for Japanese Culture, The Harriman Institute: Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies, Incite Institute/Columbia Center for the Study of Social Difference, Institute for Comparative Literature and Society (ICLS), “Sites of Cinema” University Seminars, The Society of Fellows & Heyman Center for the Humanities, Weatherhead East Asian Institute
Focus is on social change in historical moments that resonate in the present from a comparative international perspective. Events set up dialogue across cultures around political questions: how documentary making was historically aligned with movements for independence, agitation for change, citizen revolt, labor reform, and immigrant struggle. Conference participants rethink the discourse around documentary non-fiction in widest circulation starting from the premise that documentary moving image-making developed worldwide in “times of crisis”: 1920s Soviet agit-prop in revolutionary Russia, 1930s US Depression-era documentary, pre and post-World War II Japan, and post-Bandung Afro-Asian cinematic networks. But what about the new social justice crises we face and how are makers strategizing as a consequence? Finally, why the “recourse” to documentary in mobilizing communities—then, via the new technology of motion picture film—now, via iphone video uploads?
Pre-Conference Events: Columbia University Morningside Campus
Tuesday, March 3, 6-8 PM
Heyman Center for the Humanities
“Dziga Vertov: Cinema-Truth & Its Discontents: Prehistories and Afterlives,” Julia Alekseyeva (University of Pennsylvania)
Respondent: Tadas Bugnevicius (Columbia University)
Register
Wednesday, March 4, 6 PM
403 Kent Hall, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
“When ‘Camera as Gun’ is not a Metaphor: Violence in the Art & Life of Adachi Masao,” Markus Nornes (University of Michigan)
Introduction: Takuya Tsunoda (Columbia University)
Register
Thursday, March 5
University Seminars “Sites of Cinema”
Faculty House
6 PM Dinner
7–9 PM “The Discontinuous Long Take in Contemporary World Cinema” (Chinese and Vietnamese), Jason McGrath (University of Minnesota)
Respondent: Jiwei Xiao (Fairfield University)
To request dinner reservations & receive a QR code for campus access, email Leon Li: bl349@columbia.edu
All-Day Conference: Lenfest Center for the Arts, Columbia University Manhattanville Campus
Friday, March 6, 10 AM–10 PM
The Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room, 2nd floor, Lenfest Center for the Arts
Register for conference and screenings
10–10:15 AM | Welcome
Sarah Cole, Dean of the School of the Arts, Columbia University
10:15–11:15 AM | Panel #1: Internationalism and Solidarity
Moderator: Lydia Liu (Columbia University)
- “Historical Temporalities of Struggle: Workers International Relief. New York/Moscow/Tokyo,” Jane Gaines (Columbia University)
- “Translating the ‘Bandung Spirit’: Beijing’s Asian Film Week, 1957,” Elliot Gong (Columbia University)
- TBA, Markus Nornes (University of Michigan)
11:15–11:30 AM | Discussion
11:30 AM–12:30 PM | Panel #2: Radical Documentary: The Soviets & Vertov to Today
Moderator: Anastasia Kostina (Columbia University)
- “Huang Weikai’s Neo-Vertovian Disorder: Citizens with their DV Cameras,” Jim Hoberman (Columbia University)
- “Compound Eye Visions: Network Ambivalence, Documentary Experiment, and the Threshold of (In-)Visibility,” Yilun Li (Columbia University)
- TBA, David Fresko (Rutgers University)
12:30–12:45 PM | Discussion
12:45–2 PM | Lunch
The Lantern, 8th floor, Lenfest Center for the Arts
2–2:45 PM | Panel # 3: The Politics of Chinese Documentary Today
Moderator: Charles Musser (Yale University)
- “Filming Chinese Working-Class Precarity: Yu Tuangyi’s Documentary Tetralogy,” Feng Bao (Northeast Normal University)
- “Making Politicality Legible in Contemporary Chinese Documentary,” Chi Wang (Sichuan Film and Television University)
2:45–3 PM | Discussion
3–3:20 PM | Still photography presentation
“The Illusion Called Document: Nakahira Takuma’s Interrogations of the Material Conditions of Image Media,” Franz Prichard (Florida State University)
3:20–5 PM | Roundtable #1: Connections & Communities: Documentary in East Asia and Beyond
Moderator: Takuya Tsunoda (Columbia University)
Roundtable: Ying Qian (Columbia University), Jason McGrath (University of Minnesota), Akiyama Tamako (Kanagawa University/NYU), Markus Nornes (University of Michigan), Franz Prichard (Florida State University)
5–5:15 PM | Discussion
5:30–6:45 PM | Reception
The Lantern, 8th floor, Lenfest Center for the Arts
7–8 PM | Screening: Chinese Diaspora Female Workers (38 min. total)
Introduction: Kaitlin Hao (Columbia University)
- Sewing Woman (dir. Arthur Dong, 1982), 14 min.
- Blue Sun Palace (dir. Constance Tsang, 2024), 15 min. clip
- Work-in-progress documentary short about migrant massage workers (dir. Taylor Hom, 2026), 24 min.
8–9:30 PM | Roundtable #2: Organizing Around Labor and Immigration Issues
Moderator: Zhen Zhang (New York University)
Roundtable: Kaitlin Hao (Columbia University), Constance Tsang (writer/director, Blue Sun Palace, 2024), Taylor Hom (director/producer, work-in-progress, 2026), and two massage workers
Translators: Mandarin & Korean
