ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the introduction of John Grierson (1898–1972), leader of the British documentary film movement, into China by Sun Mingjing 孙明经 (1911–1992), the leading figure of educational film in China in the 1940s. Sun can be called the Chinese Grierson, with his imagery practice forming a very meaningful comparison with that of Grierson. Sun became the key person in charge of the Department of Educational Film, founded in the School of Science of Nanking University in 1934. During China’s war against the Japanese invasion, the Department of Educational Film of Nanking University produced 112 films, more than half of which was the work of Sun Ming Jing. Between 1940 and 1941, Sun Ming Jing went on a study tour of the United States sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, during which he visited the American Film Centre in New York, the Visual Education Centre of the University of Minnesota and the Disney studios in Hollywood. After returning to China in 1942, he founded the Film and Broadcast Monthly, the only academic journal on film and film education run by a university at the time in China. He took charge of the development of the curriculum of the first cinematography course in new China, creating a number of subjects covering cinematography, audio recording and screening. In the new documentary movement which started in the mid-late 1980s in China, Sun was a leading figure.
