EXPERIENCE
Dancing with Water:
Women’s cinema from contemporary China
Feb-April 2024
London
Dancing with water is a film season curated and programmed by Kiki Tianqi Yu (Senior Lecturer in Film, QMUL) and Shan Tong (Curator of BISFF), with the aim to revitalise the way we think feminism, power, cinema, and artistic practice. At a time when feminism requires critical re-evaluation in the face of overwhelming neo-liberalisation; when women filmmakers globally request serious appreciation under the patriarchal structure of film industries; and when debates on women become a rare platform for public engagement within the PRC, Dancing with water captures a burgeoning energy of fluidity, flexibility and resilience of Chinese women filmmakers and their cinemas. Creating a space to connect debates of women and cinema with the Daoist concept of yin as a transformative power, it encourages us to value the water like feminine force, as not only soft and formless but also pervasive and tenacious.
Along side 5 screening sessions of 12 features and 9 shorts made by PRC women filmmakers, there are also Q&As, panel discussions, filmmakers’ talks, and Dao Yin meditative workshop, where the audience’s participations shape the debates. Bringing contemporary Chinese women filmmakers under spotlight, and engaging conversations with UK audiences and industrial professionals, it also aims to help the audience to revaluate their own strength facing difficult times.
Funded by the Centre for Public Engagement large Grant, Queen Mary University of London, led by Kiki Tianqi Yu, with support from QMUL’s Film Studies Department, BLOC, and in partnership with the Garden Cinema, Bertha DocHouse, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Sine Screen, & Queer East Festival.
Diving deep into women’s psyche on how they negotiate with gendered limitations and sextual desires, films in this session do not shy away from presenting women’s fear and vulnerabilities, and their quiet resistance to societal and patriarchal expectations.
The crucial stage of gaining gendered consciousness and self-discovery through maternal ties has stimulated the proliferation of recently women’s cinema that is also often through directors’ self-performance.
The massive reservoir of familial memories and the country’s past continues to shape women’s imagination of and desire for a more generous future. Their determination of waving pasts and futures together also bring them courage to break formal boundaries of cinema.
The inner worlds of women are like a maze. Formless like water, they can unite together to form an unimaginable power that has the potential to breaks unbearable restraints.
The diaspora, being an integral part of an indelible experience, profoundly influences individuals' memory. Women's cinema adeptly captures these nuanced intricacies through a diverse range of observations in and outside China.
Barbarian Invasion (2021)
Timetable
Booking
Launching event
1pm, 11 Feb 2024 Chinese New Year
@ BLOC
Public Panel Discussions
8 March 2024 @ BLOC
Filmmaker's talks
@ Film Studies,
Queen Mary University of London
Dao Yin Workshop
12pm 24 March 2024
@ BLOC BLACK BOX
Launching the film season with a public screening of This Woman (Alan Zhang, 90 min, 2023) (Free Tickets), followed by Q&A with the filmmakers and a panel discussion.
Wine reception.
Led by an experienced meditator, this three hours section will introduce basic techniques of Dao Yin meditation, followed by a screening of a slow film Mama.
*max. 20 people.
