Independent Chinese Eco-Documentary: Cinematic Encounters with Post-Socialist Development and the Anthropocene Crisis

Abstract

Independent Chinese eco-documentary has received insufficient academic attention within existing English-language scholarship about Mainland Chinese independent film and ecocinema. This research gap fails to recognize the importance of ‘independence’ to the existence and survival of ecocinema practice within this socio-political and film production context. Inadequate ecocritical paradigms of human-nature relations in post-socialist China also prevent academic engagement with Anthropocene awareness in indie ecocinema. This thesis investigates how indie Chinese eco-documentaries represent the socioenvironmental problems arising from the post-socialist period and the Anthropocene epoch, with a focus on how eco-filmmakers employ different cinematic techniques and documentary approaches to guide audiences’ interpretative journeys through the text. It is hypothesized that indie Chinese eco-documentaries pose a collective challenge to official state narratives around economic development. The main methodological approach will be constituted by the close textual analysis of nine indie Chinese eco-documentaries in dialogue with affective, material and process-relational ecological approaches. This will be further supported by the implementation of the Anthropocene as an ecocritical paradigm and the introduction of the technosphere concept as a theoretical and structural framework. Adopting a follow-the-thing approach along the nodes of economic development over its four chapters – Extraction, Construction, Ruins, and Waste - this thesis embarks upon a cinematic journey through the Anthroposcapes of post-socialist China. Chapter 1 traces the parasitic boom-and-bust economic cycle of extractive mining industries. Chapter 2 dissects the political performances surrounding infrastructure projects. Chapter 3 unearths socio-spatial resistance to urban redevelopment in modern megacities. Chapter 4 wades into waste management and recovery crises arising from national and global flows of urban waste. By raising awareness about the unique contribution of this film sub-culture, this thesis aims to not only highlight the political potential of ecocinema practice within Mainland China but also prevent the physical and cultural erasure it faces from rising political restrictions