Just Images: Ethics and Documentary Film in China

Abstract

In previous issues of China Heritage Quarterly we have published material related to the documentary film The Gate of Heavenly Peace and attempts by one of the protagonists of China's 1989 protest movement to use the U.S. court system to silence independent filmmakers (see here and here). The film (as well as its makers, including the editor of the present publication) has also been the subject of theory-laden dissection as well as risible pseudo-academic throw-back Maoist analysis.

In 2011, ethics in documentary film became a prominent area of contention within the world of Chinese independent cinema. The following article by the Harvard-based scholar Ying Qian offers an overview of the debate.—The Editor