Parrhesia in the age of the ultra-unreal Independent non-fiction filmmaking in 21st century China

Twenty-five years since the emergence of independent cinema in China, the film culture it initiated still exists. Independent Chinese cinema carves out an alternative space where official discourses are questioned, non-mainstream realities are represented, and a wide range of topics are openly discussed. It is this capacity of independent Chinese cinema to question official and mainstream truths, and to present alternatives in its production, content, and distribution that forms the focus of this study. Through four case studies, centred on the discourses used by independent Chinese filmmakers, the content of environmentally themed docu-fiction films, underground screenings in Beijing, and the dissemination of independent Chinese cinema at international film festivals, this study asks how independent Chinese cinema creatively and critically positions itself in contemporary China and what it means to speak truth to power (or, in Michel Foucault’s terms, to engage in parrhesia) in the age of the ultra-unreal.