Asian Film and Media Initiative

About the Initiative

Asia features prominently in the rapidly changing global economic and cultural landscape. Housed at the Department of Cinema Studies, Tisch at NYU, the AFMI is envisioned to be a multifaceted hub for teaching, research, public outreach, and transnational networking related to both historical and contemporary formations of Asian film and media.  We conceive Asia to comprise all countries east of Bosphorus, yet the Initiative will also engage various trans-Asian interactions that include the Asian-Pacific region and the Asian diaspora.  The film and media forms that our curricular offerings, research projects and public events will try to encompass include film (originally made on celluloid), video, TV, radio, and digital media, as well as the political economy of the film and media industry, audiences, mass culture, media activism, and experimental audiovisual arts in a variety of forms and formats.

AFMI serves as a platform for connecting NYU faculty and students interested in Asian film and media.  We have a strong commitment to curriculum development.  In response to increasing interest and demand in courses related to film and media in Asia and its diaspora in the global context, AFMI offers an undergraduate minor open to NYU students including those at NYUAD and NYUSH. 

AFMI is committed to fostering innovative research agendas that are connected to the contemporary film and media culture formations including their historical conditions.  In addition to and in conjunction with faculty and student generated research, we host or co-sponsor related workshops and colloquia. We organize or support public events on Asian film and media independently or in collaboration with other NYU institutions and Asia-related cultural institutions in the metropolitan area.

AFMI is dedicated to the preservation and archiving of Asian film and media legacies and will be in close collaboration with the MIAP (Moving Image Archiving and Preservation) program within Cinema Studies, both in terms of the in house teaching and networking with official as well as non-government sponsored archives and related organizations in Asia.

AFMI Programs

B.A. Minor

The undergraduate minor is an integral part of the broader Asian Film and Media Initiative that involves a comprehensive program of teaching, learning, research and public outreach.   As a whole, the Initiative will contribute to the consolidation and expansion of the community of NYU faculty and students interested in Asian film and media on the Washington Square campus and extending to NYUSH and NUYAD, as well as other global sites.

The minor is designed to provide an interdisciplinary and comparative focus on the historical and contemporary media forms of Asia and the Asian diaspora, as well in depth study or particular regions and topics.  Student’s will investigate the aesthetics forms of popular and art cinemas, the political economy of the film and media industry, audiences, mass culture, media activism, and experimental audiovisual arts in a variety of media and formats.  The audiovisual forms that this curriculum will encompass include film (originally made on celluloid), video, anime, TV, radio, and digital media.  The minor will prepare students for advanced studies in cinema and media studies, Asian studies, media journalism, cultural policy, and other related disciplines, as well as professional and career development.

The program’s core faculty include full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty from TSOA, Steinhardt, CAS, and Gallatin.  More will join as the program evolves and grows.  This minor will also create a more pronounced academic connection with the evolving Global Network University framework, including NYUAD and the opening of NYU Shanghai in fall 2013.   As the Initiative’s research and teaching agenda and community expand, we hope to engage various trans-Asian interactions that include the Asian-Pacific region as well as the Middle East in the future within the broad and mobile GNU context.

Find out more about the B.A. Minor in Asian Film & Media.

International Visitor Program

Each semester or year, AFMI will host or sponsor 2-3 visiting fellows, either academics, media practitioners and other professionals for short-term stay during which they will give talks, screening works, organizing workshops or offer a short-term intensive seminar. AFMI also welcomes visitors who come with fellowships provided by their home institutions or outside grants.  It is hoped that these individuals will bring cutting-edge knowledge and innovative methods in Asian film and media studies, curating, archiving and preservation.

Events

Fall 2024

  • A BOOK LAUNCH FOR THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO ASIAN CINEMAS (more)
  • 11th Reel China Biennial at NYU (more)

Spring 2024

  • Queering State Power in Asian Diasporic World-Making (more)

Fall 2023

  • No Rule is Our Rule at Asia Society, New York (more)
  • Reel Taiwan (more)
  • Ballad on the Shore (岸上漁歌) (more)

Spring 2023

  • Love and Death in Montmartre 蒙馬特之愛與死 (2019): Screening and panel discussion (more)
  • Diversity on Screen -- Now What? (more)
  • Through the Queer Diasporic Gaze (more)
  • Special screening and conversation of Yamabuki (more)

Fall 2022

  • 10th Reel China Biennial at NYU (more)

Spring 2022

  • An Online International Workshop on the Politics of Asian Cinema Practices (more)
  • CHAIR'S WORKSHOP W/ ISABEL SANDOVAL Screening followed by Q&A March 24th @ 6PM KJCC (RSVP here)
  • “IN THE SAME BREATH” Screening + Discussion (more)

Fall 2021

  • BL Now: Queer Feminist Perspectives (more)

Spring 2021

  • New Voices/New Directions in Trans-Asian Film and Media Studies (more)

Fall 2020

  • "Drawn Together: Comics, Diversity, and Stereotypes": Panel discussion with filmmaker Harleen Singh (more)
  • The Cancer Journals Revisited: Screening and Discussion with Lana Lin (more)

Fall 2019

  • After Concrete Architecture: Li Juchuan in Conversation with Professor Thomas Looser (more)
  • Reel China @ NYU 9th Biennial 2019 (more)
  • Book Launch of Pop Empires: Transnational and Diasporic Flows of India and Korea (more)

Spring 2019

  • Screening & Discussion: Ko I-Chen’s Blue Moon (more)
  • Symposium: Queer Migrations and Diasporic Intimacies (more)
  • CineCina Short Film Awards Nominees (more)

Fall 2018

  • Female Directors女导演 (2012) with Director Yang Mingming (more)
  • Body As Archive: Body Workshop and Documentary Screenings Featuring Wen Hui, Zou Xueping and Li Xinmin (Living Dance Studio, Beijing) (more)
  • Film Series: Queer Migrations & Diasporic Intimacies (more)

Spring 2018

  • An Afternoon with Li Xiaofei: Screening and Discussion of The Assembly Line Project 《流水线项目系列录像》(more)
  • Vicarious Media: Kpop, Mukbang, and Consuming Consumption. A Talk by Dr. Michelle Cho, McGill University. (more)
  • Taivalu (2010) and The Great Buddha (2014) - Screening and Discussion with director Huang Hsin-Yao (more)
  • Postwar Tokyo: Reality and Imagination through the Camera - A talk by Shunya Yoshimi, University of Tokyo. (more)
  • Transforming the Liminal Hero: Border-crossing Interconnections in The Taking of Tiger Mountain - A talk by Zhuoyi Wang, Hamilton College. (more)
  • Raise the Umbrellas (2016) - Post-screening discussion with the director, Evans Chan. (more)
  • Money and Honey (2015) - Post-screening discussion with the director, Jasmine Ching-Hui Lee (Associate Professor, Day-Yeh University), and preview trailer of Lee's work-in-progress Come Back My Child. (more)

Fall 2017

  • The Exilic Gaze and the Activist Lens: An Afternoon with Documentary Filmmakers Huang Wenhai and Zeng Jinyan. (more)
  • China Crossings: Ethnographic Film In and Of China - A day of screenings and conversation. (more)
  • The Island Funeral (2015) - Followed by post-screening Q&A with the screenwriter. (more)
  • FILM SERIES: Martial Law and After, co-sponsored by the Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan) and AFMI. (more)

Spring 2017

  • One Mind - screening and discussion with filmmaker Edward A. Burger (more)
  • EVERY FOLD MATTERS - live performance and film project that looks at the charged, intimate space of the neighborhood laundromat and the people who work there (more)
  • Boundary - screening and discussion with director Ben WONG King-fai and producer Mary WONG Shuk-han (more)

Fall 2016

  • Tell the Prime Minister - screening and discussion with filmmaker Eiji OGUMA (more)
  • The Strangled Sea - a screening and discussion (more)
  • Screening and Discussion of Pema Tseden's Tharlo (2016) and Du Haibin's A Young Patriot (2014) (more)
  • Reel China @NYU 8th Biennial 2016 (more)
  • Pleasure Principles: Bad Asians, Bottomhood, and the Belated Archive, November 4 (more)
  • "Iron Moon: The Poetry of Chinese Workers" Screening and Discussion, November 9 (more)

Spring 2016

  • Golden Gate Girls - Screening and Discussion with Filmmaker Louisa Wei (more)
  • True, Good, Beautiful: Politics & Forms of Virtue in Xi Jinping-Era China (more)
  • Reel Asia: Three Women Filmmakers from Taiwan, South Korea and Bangladesh (more)

Fall 2015

  • Us & Them: Korean Indie Rock in a K-Pop World - A Screening and Discussion with Producer Stephen Epstein (more)
  • Margarita with a Straw - Post-screening discussion with director Shonali Bose (more)
  • Memories Look at Me - Post-screening discussion with filmmaker Song Fang (more)
  • Experimental Japanese Films of the 1960s (more)
  • From DV China to DV-Made China (more)

Fall 2014 - Spring 2015

  • Beyond “Asian Extremes”: A Workshop on New Cinema Practices in Southeast and East Asia (more)
  • New South Asian Documentary: On and Off Screen
  • Queer Waves, Our Stories (NYU Shanghai)
  • Your Day Is My Night - screening and discussion with filmmaker Lynne Sachs (NYU Shanghai)

Affiliated Faculty

Zhen Zhang, Director

Lily H Chumley  (Ph.D.)
Associate Professor, Media Culture and Communication, Steinhardt

Nina Cornyetz (Ph.D.)
Professor, Gallatin School of Individualized Studies

Tejaswini Ganti (Ph.D.)
Associate Professor, Anthropology, FAS

Feng-Mei Heberer (Ph.D.)
Assistant Professor, Cinema Studies, TSOA

Radha S. Hedge
Professor, Media Culture and Communication, Steinhardt

Dale Hudson (Ph.D.)
Associate Teaching Professor, Film & New Media, NYU Abu Dhabi

Thomas Looser (Ph.D.)
Associate Professor, East Asian Studies, FAS

Josslyn Luckett (Ph.D.)
Assistant Professor, Cinema Studies, TSOA

Yoon Jeong Oh (Ph.D.)
Assistant Professor, East Asian Studies, FAS

Arvind Rajagopal (Ph.D.)
Professor, Media Culture and Communication, Steinhardt

Sandhu Sukhdev  (Ph.D.)
Associate Professor of English, Social and Cultural Analysis, FAS

Angela Xiao Wu (Ph.D.)
Assistant Professor, Media Culture and Communication, Steinhardt

Zhen Zhang (Ph.D.)
Professor, Cinema Studies, TSOA
Associate faculty in History, GSAS

Angela Zito (Ph.D.)
Associate Professor, Religious Studies and Anthropology, FAS