Abstract:

Abstract： This essay has revisited the concept of the "festival film" critical device in order to map out the global circulating trajectory of the Urban Generation Chinese films and its politics. While it is true that most independent Chinese film is destined for distribution overseas, to accuse them of "selling out"either ideologically or aestheticallyin order to win a global audience is to ignore the changing topography and dynamics of contemporary world film festival system itself. Therefore, by deploying Thomas Elsaesser and Marijke de Valck' s arguments about international film festivals and the film festival network, the author attempt to outline what he understand as a reconfigured world visual industry. Nevertheless, the ideological and cultural mechanisms embedded in the valorization of films and the politics of programming as an integral component of festival discourse needs to be highlighted in any analysis of the contemporary festival circuit, particularly as it pertains to the circulation of contemporary Chinese film through it. Then Zhang Yingjin' s formulation of postsocialist filmmaking will help to illustrate the dynamics between politics, marginality, capital, art and the market, which offers a Bourdieuian perspective through which to observe Chinese independent filmmaking without effacing the critique of filmmakers' autonomy. The festival circuit has functioned as the crucial link for Chinese independent films to enter into the global visual production or consumption chain; but in order to understand this process, stereotyped visions of "festival film" need to be revised or debunked entirely.

Key words: Key words： postsocialism; international film festival network; Urban Generation cinema; Festival Film; mannerism