AM11: AFQ Docs: Asian Feminist & Queer Documentary

Collaborative Goals

The AFQ Docs Working Group fosters cross-institutional collaboration to examine gender and sexuality in contemporary Asia through documentary film. We plan to do so through:

• Screenings and Discussions: Hosting virtual and in-person screenings of selected documentaries, followed by discussion among scholars, students, filmmakers, and community participants.
• Filmmaker Engagement: Organizing online and in-person conversations with directors to learn from their creative processes, documentary methods, and the cultural and historical contexts of their work.
• Interdisciplinary Dialogue: Bringing together participants from film and media studies, gender and sexuality studies, Asian studies, history, and related fields to explore documentary as a medium for studying lived experience, social change, and cultural memory.
• Comparative Regional Focus: Beginning with documentaries from East Asia while remaining open to work from other parts of Asia in order to encourage broader regional comparison and exchange.
• Building a Sustainable Network: Strengthening long-term connections among scholars, filmmakers, and institutions to support future teaching collaborations, public programming, conference panels, and related projects.
• Through these activities, we aim to promote nuanced discussion of gender, sexuality, community history, and documentary practice in Asia while contributing to broader conversations about visual media, public culture, and the humanities.