IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION A

Abstract

This paper examines the evolving pedagogical trajectory of film education in China, foregrounding a shift from earlier modes of Western imitation toward local reorientation. Drawing on qualitative data from in-depth interviews with Chinese film scholars, educators, and journal editors, it argues that Chinese film schools are articulating divergent educational models that move beyond Western canons as the primary reference point. Historically, Western film-school paradigms shaped curricular design, aesthetic judgment, and conceptual frameworks in China, privileging auteurist creativity and Hollywood-rooted industrial imaginaries. Interview insights, however, indicate a growing pedagogical turn that emphasises culturally embedded epistemologies, Sino-Asian visual discourses, and practice-based training aligned with national cultural and industrial development. This reorientation emerges alongside broader shifts in the Chinese film industry, including intensified cultural policy intervention, regional co-production, and expanding use of digital and AI-mediated creative practices. Rather than rejecting Western traditions wholesale, Chinese film schools selectively retain productive elements while repositioning local knowledge and regional networks as central to cinematic learning. This hybrid configuration contributes to a more polycentric screen-education ecosystem that recognises the coexistence of multiple pedagogies and knowledge formations. In doing so, it contests Western frameworks as universal and highlights the dynamism of film education under global realignments. By situating China as a critical case, the paper contributes to debates on de-Westernising and internationalising curricula, recalibrating theory and practice in film training, and negotiating global–local tensions in creative education. It argues that the Chinese experience offers an instructive model for reimagining film education beyond inherited disciplinary orthodoxies.