Locating Minority Cinema: Ethnic Identity and the Politics of Representation in Contemporary China

Abstract

This dissertation begins with a simple question: How do Korean-Chinese and Tibetans in the PRC present their stories, and what thematic or representational commonalities emerge across their works? To explore this, it examines the cinematic representations of Chinese ethnic minorities in the films of Tibetan director Pema Tseden and Korean-Chinese director Zhang Lv. As Stuart Hall argues, ethnic identities are “never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices, and positions” (Hall, 1996, p. 4). This study builds on this premise, asserting that ethnic minority voices in film are as diverse as the lived experiences of individual ethnic minorities. It argues that the specific yet divergent socio-political milieus influence how these two directors shape their perspectives and themes in representing identity. Furthermore, this dissertation reveals that what these two ethnic minority filmmakers embody in their works not only challenges ideological representations of ethnic minorities but also deconstructs the essentialized notion of Chineseness. Through a textual analysis of five films—Zhang’s Dooman River (2009) and The Grain in Ear (2005), and Pema’s The Silent Holy Stones (2005), Old Dog (2011), and Tharlo (2015)—this study engages with Hall’s concept of cultural identity, translocality, accented cinema, and transnationality as theoretical frameworks. It ultimately highlights how these films embody cultural identity, navigate both literal and metaphorical border crossings, and offer nuanced understandings of displacement within the respective contexts of Tibetan and Korean-Chinese communities.