This all-day conference is part of “MoMentum: Mobilization & East Asian Documentary in Trans-Pacific Context.” See the rest of the events in the series.
Still from work-in-progress documentary short about migrant massage workers (dir. Taylor Hom, 2026)
Conference Schedule
10–10:15 AM | Welcome
Sarah Cole, Dean of the School of the Arts, Columbia University
10:15–11:15 AM | Panel #1: Internationalism and Solidarity
Moderator: Lydia Liu (Columbia University)
"Historical Temporalities of Struggle: Workers International Relief. New York/Moscow/Tokyo," Jane Gaines (Columbia University)
“Translating the ‘Bandung Spirit’: Asian Film Week, Beijing 1957,” Elliot Gong (Columbia University)
“Print Exchanges between Ogawa Productions and the West: Tokyo/San Francisco/Paris,” Markus Nornes (University of Michigan)
11:15–11:30 AM | Discussion
11:30 AM–12:30 PM | Panel #2: Radical Documentary: The Soviets & Vertov to Today
Moderator: Anastasia Kostina (Columbia University)
“Huang Weikai's Neo-Vertovian Disorder: Citizens with their DV Cameras,” Jim Hoberman (Columbia University)
“Compound Eye Visions: Network Ambivalence, Documentary Experiment, and the Threshold of (In-)Visibility,” Yilun Li (Columbia University)
"Montage and Maoism: The Dziga Vertov Group and Negative Dialectics," David Fresko (Rutgers University)
12:30–12:45 PM | Discussion
12:45–2 PM | Lunch
The Lantern, 8th floor, Lenfest Center for the Arts
2–2:45 PM | Panel # 3: The Politics of Chinese Documentary Today
Moderator: Charles Musser (Yale University)
"Filming Chinese Working-Class Precarity: Yu Tuangyi’s Documentary Tetralogy," Feng Bao (Northeast Normal University)
"Making Politicality Legible in Contemporary Chinese Documentary," Chi Wang (Sichuan Film and Television University)
2:45–3 PM | Discussion
3–3:20 PM | Presentation: Still Photography
“The Illusion Called Document: Nakahira Takuma's Interrogations of the Material Conditions of Image Media,” Franz Prichard (Florida State University)
3:20–5 PM | Roundtable #1: Connections & Communities: Documentary in East Asia and Beyond
Moderator: Takuya Tsunoda (Columbia University)
Speakers: Ying Qian (Columbia University), Jason McGrath (University of Minnesota), Akiyama Tamako (Kanagawa University/NYU), Markus Nornes (University of Michigan), Franz Prichard (Florida State University)
Translator: Shu Xu (Mandarin)
5–5:15 PM | Discussion
5:30–6:45 PM | Reception
The Lantern, 8th floor, Lenfest Center for the Arts
7–8 PM | Screening: Chinese Diaspora Female Workers
Introduction: Kaitlin Hao (Columbia University)
Sewing Woman (dir. Arthur Dong, 1982), 14 min.
Blue Sun Palace (dir. Constance Tsang, 2024), 21 min. clip
Work-in-progress documentary short about migrant massage workers (dir. Taylor Hom, 2026)
8–9:30 PM | Roundtable #2: Organizing Around Labor and Immigration Issues
Moderator: Zhen Zhang (New York University)
Speakers: Kaitlin Hao (Columbia University), Constance Tsang (writer/director, Blue Sun Palace, 2024), Taylor Hom (director/producer, work-in-progress, 2026), Fran Yu (outreach coordinator, Red Canary Song), Lisa (organizer, Red Canary Song)
Translators: Yilun Li (Mandarin), Seoeun Choi (Korean)
9:30–9:45 PM | Discussion
Co-sponsors:
Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts
Center for Comparative Media
C.V. Starr East Asian Library/Dragon Summit Culture Endowment Fund
Dean of Humanities
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Donald Keene Center for Japanese Culture
The Harriman Institute: Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies
Incite Institute/Columbia Center for the Study of Social Difference
Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
“Sites of Cinema” University Seminars
The Society of Fellows & Heyman Center for the Humanities
Weatherhead East Asian Institute