Call for Papers

Asia-Pacific Film Coproduction: Theory, Industry and Aesthetics

Editors: Dal Yong Jin (Simon Fraser University)
Wendy Su (University of California, Riverside)

The past decade has witnessed the most remarkable trend in media globalization: the
unprecedented growth in film and media collaboration in the Asia-Pacific region. As several
recent movies, including ‘The Great Wall’ (2016) and ‘Okja’ (2017) prove, several Asian
countries like China, Korea, and Japan, and Western countries, in particular the U.S., have
strengthened their collaboration through film coproductions. This new trend is market driven
and facilitated by cultural policy changes in Asian countries. Asian countries aim to export
their cultures and connect to global networks, while Western countries, and Hollywood in
particular, want fresh financing sources and target growing audiences in Asia.
Coproductions are hardly a new thing in global film industries. Since the late 1990s,
several East and South East Asian countries have developed coproduction to pool resources.
However, the Asia-Pacific coproduction in the last decade—compatible with Asia’s
ascendance to a super power and Asia’s active foray into global film arena where Hollywood
remains maintaining a strong presence in the new millennium—signals something
unprecedented happening and a potential game change. The Asia-Pacific region has indeed
demonstrated incredible dynamic and initiative in globalizing local media products and
businesses as a form of cultural regionalization. As the media collaboration through
coproduction has become a striking phenomenon in globalization—neither cultural
imperialism, nor local resistance—through collaboration between Western and non-Western
cultural industries, it is critical to understand the changing milieu surrounding cultural
industries in tandem with globalization and/or cultural regionalization.
This book, therefore, aims to decipher the new trend of global coproductions from
theoretical, industrial and film aesthetic perspectives. Instead of intending a comprehensive
survey of all coproductions in the Asia-Pacific region, it attempts to use key examples of
regional coproductions to reflect on theoretical models of media globalization, to examine
crucial variables and factors that condition coproductions, and to explore the connotation of
global culture and aesthetics manifested in coproductions.

Potential topics for submissions include but are not limited to

 New theoretical frameworks in coproduction
 Global counter flow in screen culture
 Media capital and coproduction in Asia
 Lessons from China-India coproductions
 New international division of cultural labor in the Asia-Pacific region
 The failure of The Great Wall
 Influences of new capital (eg, Netflix) in coproduction
 New digital technologies and platforms in film coproduction and distribution
 Case studies of coproduction films in the Asia-Pacific region

Submission guidelines:
Submissions should be no more than 8,000 words, including notes and references. The
deadline of the paper would be March 31, 2018. A title and an abstract up to 300 words
should be submitted to either Dal Yong Jin (djin@sfu.ca) or Wendy Su (wendysu@ucr.ed) by
July 31, 2017.