ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of independent cinema in the People's Republic of China (PRC) has developed since the early 1990s. Gradually after the turn of the twenty-first century, a number of factors have progressively unravelled the self-feeding chain, breaking the former circular logic into a new condition of uneasy relationships between filmmakers, the international film industry and the Chinese state. Under the action of the uncertainty principle, non-homogenously alternating strategic indifference and active repression within a state of menacing suspension, the practice of independent cinema in China is constantly in danger. The first stage in the process is represented by the non-orthodox production methods originally adopted by Chinese independent filmmakers. Therefore, the second step in the process is represented by Chinese censorship. The third stage in our pattern is represented by the international film festival circuit and the film industry professionals gravitating around it. Accordingly, the normative path of film production and the expectations of the Chinese censors kept on being transgressed.
