This conference will be conducted in a hybrid format. The Zoom link will be provided in due course.

The language of discussion will be English only.

Place is limited.

Registration deadline: 25 May 2026 (Monday)

Registration link: https://forms.gle/LWrcosf2FkPU5fuaA

Conference Introduction

Two great forces have governed the development of world cinema and our conception of it. On the one hand, Hollywood’s pervasively influential projection of life style through film style, and on the other, partly in opposition and equally significant, the predominantly European, auteurist, model of stylistic, and sometime socially-engaged, cinema, enshrined within the promotional machinery of the film festival and the various “new wave.” In the meantime, Indian cinema, which emerged as a new force on the global stage with independence, after the striking success of Raj Kapoor’s and Nargis’s Awaara (1951), and established itself as the world’s second largest cinema, for many years remained largely invisible in western-centric film history, save for a few acclaimed auteurs. This was partly because its popularity lay outside Europe and America, and partly because the nature of its melodramatic appeal—above all through the romantic idiom of song and dance—eluded western taste-makers and audiences alike. However, this was not the case in a large part of the world, especially the Soviet Union, the Middle East, South East Asia, and Africa, where the aesthetics of Indian cinema spoke, in part, across the boundaries of language, and sometimes, no doubt, as in India itself, to unlettered audiences.

Now times have changed, and the last 20 years have witnessed a flourishing of scholarship on Indian cinema both in India and across the west, especially on Bollywood, which is consonant with the shift in status of the Indian film industry itself (finally made official in 1998) and its more assertive presence on the global stage, in part through the growing disposable income and clout of non-resident Indians. Yet much remains to be understood about the global histories and trajectories of Indian cinema outside the orbit of Europe and America and, in particular, the transactions that have taken place between India and other Asian countries that are the focus of this conference. Perhaps because Indian cinema has occupied a position as the largest global rival to Hollywood, it has tended to be studied independently of its relationships to other Asian cinema cultures. Yet these histories are both closely interwoven and inter-culturally specific: from the long history of co-productions with Iran and the reception of Indian cinema in the middle east, to the way Hong Kong cinema helped catalyse the remarkable shift in Indian cinema of the 1970s towards action cinema and the recent impact of Korean cinema.

Hosted by the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong, this three-day conference brings together leading and emerging scholars from the Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America. We look forward to welcoming attendees to Hong Kong for a landmark event in the study of Asian cinemas.

Click here for conference schedule.

Keynote Speakers

S.V. Srinivas, Azim Premji University
Tamaki Matsuoka, Asian Film Researcher
Krista Van Fleit, University of South Carolina
Rashmi Doraiswamy, Film Critic

Plenary Speakers

Sangita Gopal, University of Oregon
Nitin Govil, University of Southern California
Dale Hudson, NYU Abu Dhabi
Haina Jin, Fudan University
Monika Mehta, Binghamton University
Swapnil Rai, University of Michigan
Iain Robert Smith, King’s College London
Samhita Sunya, University of Virginia

Moderators

Bidisha Banerjee, The Education University of Hong Kong
Wesley Jacks, Lingnan University
Jia Tan, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Louisa Wei, City University of Hong Kong
Jamie Zhao, City University of Hong Kong

Conference Organizers

Richard Allen
Sangjoon Lee