Epilogue

Summary

Abstract

The epilogue gives an update on several filmmakers’ recent work and situations, assessing the implications of digital technologies as well as the challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic and neo-Cold War cultural politics. A new tide of global Sinophone women's cinema is emerging in Asia, North America and elsewhere, bringing hope for the future in a time of great uncertainty in the world.

Keywords: Covid-19 pandemic, neo-Cold War culture politics, Sinophone women's cinema

Where are we now? How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected Sinophone women's cinema? The pandemic has brought tremendous loss and caused serious disruptions in the world. China was the first country to have a nationwide lockdown in late January 2020. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other neighboring countries quickly followed suit. Before long, the entire engine of globalization seemed to have come to a halt, with domestic and international airlines discontinuing entire seasons of flights, and cargo containers stockpiled in harbors for months with no destinations. Parliaments, congresses, Olympic Games, and countless international conventions were suspended or delayed for months. Theaters, museums, gyms, coffee houses, restaurants, and other indoor public venues were shut down. Much of the standard manifestation of the public sphere reliant on these physical infrastructures seems to have vanished overnight. Cinema, a relatively cheap entertainment, and a medium that has connected people in the intimate public space of the movie theater and across borders for over a century, suddenly found itself retreating into the private sphere in home theaters, laptops, and tablets. Film festivals were canceled one after another and, with fits and starts, mostly switched to the virtual mode at a significantly reduced scale, joining the existing streaming culture in hybrid formats availing, among other means, of pre-recorded interviews and Zoom-in talkbacks. Second or third-tier festivals that specialized in indie flicks, documentaries, lgbtq+ gems, and women's works also joined the great “migration” online.

After the initial shock and blockage, film communities began to find ways to regroup and expand in various ways. The involuntary virtual turn for most of the public activities, including movie-going and festival-attending, taking place through streaming and zooming in private homes, has inadvertently given quite a literal meaning to the intimate-public commons, making films and festivals large and small almost equally accessible.