Documentary, Classical Narrative and Global Circulation: A Case Study of CNEX and Its Training Events

Adopting CNEX as a case, this paper concentrates on its global-oriented training events and transnational alliance to understand how institutional factors shape the production and storytelling of Chinese independent documentary. Aiming at nurturing local talents and facilitating the local-global exchange, CNEX holds CNEX Chinese Documentary Forum (CCDF) and Sundance-CNEX Editing Lab, where local filmmakers are trained by international professionals in pitch techniques and documentary storytelling. In the heteronomous CCDF, Chinese projects are tailored and standardized through the training workshop and the formal pitch to meet the requirements from international broadcasters. “Potential” projects are further selected and brought into other regional or international pitching sites for financing. CCDF has become a local node within the global pitching network. In Sundance-CNEX Editing Lab, projects in post-production are reconfigured into classical narrative, a mode with a universal claim, to engage the mass audience and enhance the films’ emotional appeals.Thus, CNEX has been incorporated into the global media network as a local site on which documentaries of Chinese subjects are institutionalized and processed for global circulation. However, rather than merely for profit-making, I argue, both classical narrative and its inclination to the global market are strategies CNEX employs to attract both local and global audience as large as possible. Here, documentary is a specific genre mobilized to circulate Chinese knowledge and experience.