What does it look like, feel like, sound like when China transforms? Like perhaps no other contemporary Chinese filmmaker, internationally renowned director Jia Zhangke has via his films and documentaries added face, voice, and sound to the Chinese transformation process since the mid-1990s. In this course we will watch, discuss, and reflect Jia’s oeuvre, while maintaining a healthy balance between fiction and documentary films, as well as analyses of these. Moreover, we will interconnect with an external digital platform, which will present in-depth discussions of themes and topics in Jia’s oeuvre over the course of the summer term 2021. Apart from a comprehensive examination of Jia’s films the aim of this course is to enhance a sensitivity towards the (multi)medial multifacetedness of the Chinese transformation process as it affects both individual and group identities and local culture(s) in particular. close