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:

• Documentary and Reality (INCM3047) 09/2021-12/2021
• Media and Society (INCM1031) 09/2021-12/2021
• Communication and Culture (INCM1030) 02/2022-05/2022
• Cultures of Everyday Life (INCM1033)  02/2022-05/2022

     NAA Programs: Digital Media Production; Scriptwriting; Short Film Production

King’s College London:

• Chinese Cinemas 01/2020-05/2020
• Intro to Film Studies: Contexts 01/2019-05/2019
• Intro to Film Studies: Texts 09/2018-12/2018

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