Author Xiang Fan

Xiang Fan

Xiang FAN is a film researcher and teacher, based in University of the Arts London. She received her PhD in media communications and cultural studies from Goldsmiths University of London. Her research focuses on Chinese independent and art cinema, film festivals and exhibition culture, women’s cinema, the archive and unspoken history. She is the dossier editor of “Cinema and Piracy”. She is the also the editor of Chinese Independent Cinema Observer. Her monograph Contemporary Art Cinema Culture in China is forthcoming in 2023 as part of the Bloomsbury’s "Global East Asian Screen Cultures" book series.

In Search of Indie’s Soul: Chinese Independent Cinema Today and Beyond

Xiang Fan

November 2023

Festival Reports

Chinese independent cinema has long been associated with the term ‘underground cinema’ since its emergence in the 1990s. Due to its non-compliance to censorship, it has existed in the grey space between the aut...

Introduction

Xiang Fan

May 2023

Cinema and Piracy

What do piracy and new technologies mean for cinema? With the decline of movie theatres and the emergence of new digital media over the past few decades, concerns over the death of cinema and cinephilia have be...

Beyond Fortresses: Piracy and Grassroots Cinephile Culture in China

Xiang Fan

May 2023

Cinema and Piracy

I grew up in a provincial city in Northeast China, and before the internet age, my main way of exploring the world outside the city was through television. However, most of the time, the television in our livin...