Experimentations 6 | The Uncanny in 1980s Chinese Films

Showcasing three short films made by the Chinese state in the 1980s, this program ventures into the uncanny field between documentary and science fiction. As the socialist country stumbled into capitalism, nonfiction films gave forms to alternative epistemologies that reconfigure bodies, medicine, military, and education. The boundaries between documentary, science education film and fiction genres were constantly shifted according to specific political campaigns, resulting in hybrid and often experimental practices and the construction of a new national subjectivity that transcended modern western science. Through this double engagement with both form and content, this program does not produce yet another exceptional account of Chinese media and science, but rather sheds light on the necessary political, medical, and scientific conditions of truth claims.

Presented as part of Los Angeles Filmforum's PST ART: Art & Science Collide public screening series Experimentations: Imag(In)ing Knowledge in Film.