The power of language lies in its potential to construct captivating narratives and its infinite possibilities for envisioning the future. The visibility of the self can be achieved through translation to the other and returning to itself in a transformed way, as what Paul Ricœur calls “soi-même comme un autre.” By traveling to a different language and culture and then revisiting one’s own, the self is expanded to embrace new elements that help revolutionize its values. This panel illuminates an emerging female consciousness that cultivates empathic relations between women in the lesser-known contemporary Sinophone films produced in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Jessica Tsui-yan Li will begin by examining female subjectivity in a Hong Kong film, Father Takes a Bride (Xiao ernü1963), written by Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing 1920-1995). Chang integrated the Shanghai elements into the Mandarin-speaking film scenes in postwar Hong Kong with the Hong Kong-based production team. Li argues that the film promotes new selfhood, particularly new womanhood, that reconciles individual pursuit and family responsibility in Hong Kong during the early 1960s. In this paper, Li will analyze how various Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghainese cultural issues have been perceived, negotiated, or flattened out in depicting the conflicts between individual aspiration and family responsibility. She will also examine Hollywood cinematic techniques that portray the psychological sophistication of the female protagonist. Moreover, she will delve into Eileen Chang’s biographical traces in the story’s creation.

Then, Hsiu-Chuang Deppman will investigate the topic of motherhood in Anthony Chen’s acclaimed film Ilo Ilo (2013). Ilo Ilo represents a critical case study of how Singapore finds itself grappling with an ethical quandary: when middle-class families outsource their childcare to live-in maids from distant lands, how do working mothers negotiate with their feelings of guilt and reprieve? In this paper, Deppman examines the visible motherhood of Hwee Leng and the invisible motherhood of the domestic helper Terry, a Filipina who leaves behind her child to come to Singapore to work for a struggling family during the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The encounter between the two underscores their co-dependency: they both need work to stay afloat. Despite its grim portrait of overburdened mothers, Ilo Ilo explores the bond between peoples that goes beyond the value exchange in a transactional economy. Before going home, Terry gifts the Chens a Walkman with her favorite song, “Kahapon at Pag-ibig” (“Yesterday and Love”), a lingua franca reminder of how love and labor empower people to see beyond money and vanity.

Finally, Chialan Sharon Wang will study Huang Hui-chen’s participatory documentary, Small Talk (richang duihua, 2017). Film scholars situate Small Talk in the context of Taiwan’s “post-same-sex marriage” period. They focus on “relationality” between the documentarian and the subject to emphasize the mutual vulnerability and intersubjectivity of the participants who together reconstruct Taiwan’s queer history. That is, rather than a “site of visibility,” Huang's film offers a “site of encounter.” Considering Judith Butler’s reflection on giving an account of oneself, Wang explores how Huang, as the camera holder, interlocutor, and daughter appealing for her mother's love, fails to narrate oneself, a socially constituted female subject born to a queer mother. Ultimately, the documentarian presents a split, exposed, and failing self that can only resort to normative language to partially address herself to the other and experience the limits of knowing. Wang argues that Huang’s work articulates an authorship beholden, sustained by sociality, and antithetical to ownership and authority.

These papers challenge the notion that women’s language perpetuates the weight of socio-historical ordeal, traditional gender power relations, and diverse sexual orientations. By delving into different languages and cultures, the panelists envision the prospect of re-establishing new female sensibilities by articulating individual desires and values to contest family responsibilities, financial burdens, and social expectations. Building on these presentations, we invite the audience to ask questions about the possibility of co-constructing a sisterhood to illuminate the powers of seeing, speaking, and traveling in contemporary Sinophone cinema.

This session will include a 3-minute introduction, three 13-minute presentations, a 13-minute scheduled response, and a 20-minute discussion. The panelists are from different ranks and institutions with diverse geopolitical focus on Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan in their current research. Their research also represents a range of perspectives including female subjectivitiy, motherhood, and same-sex marriage intertwined with languages, cultural practices, economic power, and authorship. The respondent Lingzhen Wang is a renowned specialist in women’s cinema, critical theory, and transnational feminist studies.