CFP: Special Issue: Contemporary Chinese Comedy Cinema since the 2010s: Industry, Humor, and Institutional Negotiation

 

Pix credit here

For those interested I pass along this CfP for what appears to be a quite exciting special issue preliminarily in collaboration with New Review of Film and Television Studies. Details follow 

 

Special Issue: Contemporary Chinese Comedy Cinema since the 2010s: Industry, Humor, and Institutional Negotiation

 

Special Issue Editors: 

Dr. Qi Ai, Shandong Normal University, China

Professor Rui Yao, Shenzhen University, China 

 

Since the 2010s, Chinese cinema has undergone rapid industrial expansion, with comedy emerging as one of the most commercially stable and culturally visible genres in the domestic market (Yao 2019). Yet despite its sustained box-office success and cultural visibility, Chinese film comedy remains theoretically underexamined, particularly in relation to the structural transformations that have reshaped the industry over the past decade. 

 

Existing scholarship (Kong 2003; McGrath 2008; Zhang 2008; Gong 2009) has tended to privilege Feng Xiaogang and his New Year films as the primary reference point for understanding mainland Chinese screen comedy, a focus that has inadvertently obscured the emergence of new production logics, aesthetic strategies, and modes of negotiation between filmmakers, regulators, and audiences. This absence is especially striking in light of significant industrial and institutional reforms. Since 2018, film regulation has placed under the direct authority of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, significantly affecting the mechanisms through which filmmakers previously negotiated creative space with film regulation for individual expressions. 

 

Qi Ai (2025) proposed a ‘triangle metaphor’ model, which conceptualises industry commercialisation, media regulation, and popular cultures of humour as three interrelated points shaping New Year comedy filmmaking. This model offers valuable insights into Feng Xiaogang’s comedy films; however, its applicability to post-2010 contexts— characterised by auteur-or director-oriented production and film series/IP franchises— is increasingly limited.

 

This special issue takes the structural transformation and the resulting negotiations as its central concern, encourages contributors to (re)interrogate the contemporary landscape of Chinese comedy film(making) from multiple perspectives. It invites contributors to explore new theoretical frameworks suited to contemporary Chinese comedy films, discussing the complex interactions among humour, industry, regulation, and market forces. A wide range of methodologies is welcome, including but not limited to textual analysis, industry studies, cultural studies, comparative approaches, and digital humanities. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

 

•      Genre and Localisation

•      Humor and Negotiation

•      Auteur and Signature Styles

•      Censorship and Policy

•      Stars and Performance

•      Industry and Screening Seasons 

•      Narrative and Characterisation 

•      Regional and International Collaboration

•      Reception and Audience Engagement

 

 This special issue is planned for publication in 2027, in preliminary collaboration with New Review of Film and Television Studies. At this stage, we are only requesting a proposed article title and short abstract. Please submit your proposal (maximum 200 words) along with a brief biography (around 50 words) by January 30, 2026, to Qi.Ai@outlook.com and yrkino@outlook.com .

 

Inquiries: Qi.Ai@sdnu.edu.cn

 

References

Ai, Qi. 2025. Feng Xiaogang's New Year Films: Industry, Regulation, Humour and Authorship. Amsterdam University Press.

Gong, Haomin. 2009. “Commerce and the critical edge: negotiating the politics of postsocialist film, the case of Feng Xiaogang.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 3, no.3: 193-214.

Kong, Shuyu. 2003. “Big Shot from Beijing: Feng Xiaogang’s He Sui Pian and Contemporary Chinese Commercial Film.” Asian Cinema 14, no.1: 175-187.

McGrath, Jason. 2008. Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature and Criticism in the Market Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Yao, Rui. 2019. “Tanze yu Sibian: Dianying Leixing, Fengge yu Guannian Chanshi” [Exploration and Speculation: Film Genres, Styles and Notion Interpretations]. Beijing: Communication University of China Press.

Zhang, Rui. 2008. The Cinema of Feng Xiaogang: Commercialization and Censorship in Chinese Cinema after 1989. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.