Research output per year
Research output per year
Teaching Fellow in Communications & Cultural Studies
Research activity per year
Zhaoyu Zhu’s research is looking at Chinese film and media. His main expertise is the history of film technology in China. His PhD thesis studies the global technology transfer behind the use of film technology in Maoist China. From 2017 to 2020, he collaborated with Dr. Kirsty Dootson Sinclair (Lecturer of Film Studies, University of St. Andrews) on a project regarding the transnational technology transfer of Technicolor in the UK and China. This research was published on the leading film journal Screen and awarded the debut Screen Biannual Award in 2021.
About this award:
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/film-studies/news/title-131942-en.php
In addition to his academic works, he has gained professional connections with Chinese film industries, film festivals, film-related media. As a reporter, he has written about Shanghai International Film Festival and FIRST International Film Festival Xining for the Australian journal Senses of Cinema. He also interviewed the director of the London East Asia Film Festival and published a report on the UK-Chinese Times (英中时报). In 2020, he worked as a young film critic jury member for the Cinemasia Film Festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
He is also a filmmaker working on a documentary project regarding Chinese labourers.
University of Nottingham Ningbo China:
NAA Programs: Digital Media Production; Scriptwriting; Short Film Production
King’s College London:
Expertise Summary
Following his PhD research on film technologies in the Mao era, he is now completing his first monograph titled Mao's Cinematic Machinery: Film Technology in Socialist China, 1949-1979 in contract with Amsterdam University Press. Apart from it, he also works on two smallers projects about the Sino-Soviet connection in film technology in the early PRC and the 16mm pibaoji system. He also joined in the global project Film Atlas (under the supervision of James Layton, manager of the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center at Museum of Modern Art) to complete an online encyclopedia to document the history of film as a physical medium.
In addition, he also writes about Chinese film festivals and Chinese new films. He is the peer reviewer of film journal New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film.
Research Interest
Film History
Chinese Cinemas
Film Business/Film Festival
Chinese Popular Culture/Youth Culture
Media Representation
Orcid Account/ID
0000-0001-8904-6774
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
PhD, King's College London
1 Oct 2017 → 1 Mar 2022
Award Date: 1 Mar 2022
Research output: Journal Publication › Article › peer-review
Research output: Journal Publication › Review article › peer-review