CINEMA&CIEINTERNATIONAL FILM STUDIES JOURNALvol. XVIII, no. 30, Spring 2018

The charismatic and controversial figure of Mao Zedong has left a deep mark on the history of twentieth-century. His ghostly presence still looms large over China's new capitalist developments, and his legacy has also remarkably spread beyond national borders and into completely different political [...]
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The charismatic and controversial figure of Mao Zedong has left a deep mark on the history of twentieth-century. His ghostly presence still looms large over China's new capitalist developments, and his legacy has also remarkably spread beyond national borders and into completely different political and social contexts. Since the Cultural Revolution in 1966, several groups inspired by Chinese Marxism-Leninism have appeared worldwide. Political ideals, revolutionary propositions, fantasies and images of purity, as well as a Third World perspective have been projected onto the figure of Mao, giving way to a form of idolatry around him, the so-called maol trie. At the same time, Maoism has stood an umbrella term for different desires and intellectual and affective investments, according to their own cultural and geo-political contexts. Starting from these premises, this special issue of "Cin ma & Cie" aims to investigate the relationship between national cinemas and trans-national Maoism(s), with a particular focus on the ways in which cinema and its critical, theoretical and social discourse have contributed to re-writing (and re-inscribing) Chinese Maoism within different national cultures.