“MoMentum: Mobilization & East Asian Documentary in Trans-Pacific Context”

Focus is on social change in historical moments that resonate in the present from a comparative international perspective. Events set up dialogue across cultures around political questions: how documentary making was historically aligned with movements for independence, agitation for change, citizen revolt, labor reform, and immigrant struggle. Conference participants rethink the discourse around documentary non-fiction in widest circulation starting from the premise that documentary moving image-making developed worldwide in “times of crisis”: 1920s Soviet agit-prop in revolutionary Russia, 1930s US Depression-era documentary, pre and post-World War II Japan, and post-Bandung Afro-Asian cinematic networks. But what about the new social justice crises we face and how are makers strategizing as a consequence? Finally, why the “recourse” to documentary in mobilizing communities—then, via the new technology of motion picture film—now, via iphone video uploads?

Co-sponsors:
Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts
C.V. Starr East Asian Library/Dragon Summit Culture Endowment Fund
Dean of Humanities
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Donald Keene Center for Japanese Culture
The Harriman Institute: Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies
Incite Institute/Columbia Center for the Study of Social Difference
Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
“Sites of Cinema” University Seminars
The Society of Fellows & Heyman Center for the Humanities
Weatherhead East Asian Institute

Pre-Conference Events: Columbia University Morningside Campus

Tuesday, March 3, 6-8 PM
Heyman Center for the Humanities

“Dziga Vertov: Cinema-Truth & Its Discontents: Prehistories and Afterlives,” Julia Alekseyeva (University of Pennsylvania)

Respondent: Tadas Bugnevicius (Columbia University)

Register

Wednesday, March 4, 6 PM
403 Kent Hall, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

“When ‘Camera as Gun’ is not a Metaphor: Violence in the Art & Life of Adachi Masao,” Markus Nornes (University of Michigan)

Introduction: Takuya Tsunoda (Columbia University)

Register

Thursday, March 5
University Seminars “Sites of Cinema”
Faculty House

6 PM Dinner

7–9 PM “The Discontinuous Long Take in Contemporary World Cinema” (Chinese and Vietnamese), Jason McGrath (University of Minnesota)

Respondent: Jiwei Xiao (University of Connecticut)

To request dinner reservations & receive a QR code for campus access, email Leon Li: bl349@columbia.edu

All-Day Conference: Lenfest Center for the Arts, Columbia University Manhattanville Campus

Friday, March 6, 10 AM–10 PM

The Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room, 2nd floor, Lenfest Center for the Arts

Register for conference and screenings

10–10:15 AM | Welcome

Sarah Cole, Dean of the School of the Arts, Columbia University

10:15–11:15 AM | Panel #1: Internationalism and Solidarity

Moderator: Lydia Liu (Columbia University)

• “Historical Temporalities of Struggle: Workers International Relief. New York/Moscow/Tokyo,” Jane Gaines (Columbia University)
• “Translating the ‘Bandung Spirit’: Beijing’s Asian Film Week, 1957,” Elliot Gong (Columbia University)
• TBA, Markus Nornes (University of Michigan)

11:15–11:30 AM | Discussion

11:30 AM–12:30 PM | Panel #2: Radical Documentary: The Soviets & Vertov to Today

Moderator: Anastasia Kostina (Columbia University)

Panelists: Jim Hoberman (Columbia University), Yilun Li (Columbia University), David Fresko (Rutgers University)

12:30–12:45 PM | Discussion

12:45–2 PM | Lunch

The Lantern, 8th floor, Lenfest Center for the Arts

2–2:45 PM | Panel # 3:  The Politics of Chinese Documentary Today

Moderator: Charles Musser (Yale University)

• “Filming Chinese Working-Class Precarity: Yu Tuangyi’s Documentary Tetralogy,” Feng Bao (Northeast Normal University)
• “Making Politicality Legible in Contemporary Chinese Documentary,” Chi Wang (Sichuan Film and Television University)

2:45–3 PM | Discussion

3–3:20 PM | Still photography presentation

Franz Prichard (Florida State University)

3:20–5 PM | Roundtable #1: Connections & Communities: Documentary in East Asia and Beyond

Moderator: Takuya Tsunoda (Columbia University)

Roundtable: Ying Qian (Columbia University), Jason McGrath (University of Minnesota), Akiyama Tamako (Kanagawa University/NYU), Markus Nornes (University of Michigan), Franz Prichard (Florida State University)

5–5:15 PM | Discussion

5:30–6:45 PM | Reception

The Lantern, 8th floor, Lenfest Center for the Arts

7–8 PM | Screening: Chinese Diaspora Women Workers (38 min. total)

Introduction: Kaitlin Hao (Columbia University)

• Sewing Woman (dir. Arthur Dong, 1982), 14 min.
• Blue Sun Palace (dir. Constance Tsang, 2024), 15 min. clip
• Work-in-progress documentary short about migrant massage workers (dir. Taylor Hom, 2026), 24 min.

8–9:30 PM | Roundtable #2: Organizing Around Labor and Immigration Issues

Moderator: Zhen Zhang (New York University)

Roundtable: Kaitlin Hao (Columbia University), Constance Tsang (writer/director, Blue Sun Palace, 2024), Taylor Hom (director/producer, work-in-progress, 2026), and two massage workers

Translators: Mandarin & Korean

9:30–10 PM | Discussion