During the past two decades, many films from Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong have not only reached the world audience, but also become trend-setters in world cinema. This course aims to first present a brief history of independent Chinese cinema from 1905 to present time and then examine narrative and documentary features produced since 1990.By covering major ideas, movements and trends in Chinese language cinema, the course will enhance your knowledge on Chinese culture in general and provide you with a vocabulary, with which you can explore related topics and issues further. By contextualizing Chinese language cinema in world cinema, this course will meanwhile introduce fundamental terminology and critical methods that are essential for you to read and understand other cinema and moving images in general. In this sense, this course offers you examples of case studies to show you how a film can be read from different perspectives—social, economic, aesthetic, cultural, historical, gender or narrative.

Continuous Assessment: 100%