Lecturer in Film Production

  • Academic
  • Creative Education, Research
Dr Ang Gao

Dr Ang Gao is a lecturer in Film Production at the School of Film Media and Performing Arts. She is an independent documentary filmmaker and documentary theatre performer, winning awards and travelling worldwide. She is a resident artist of Folk Memory Project, Caochangdi Workstation, Beijing. Ang is also the curator and programmer of Film for Mother International Film Festival.

Dr Ang Gao

Bio

Dr Ang Gao obtained her doctoral degree at Newcastle University, UK, titled: Filming in Rural China: The Journey from observational to First-Person Filmmaking Practice (2022), a MA degree at Media and Journalism at Newcastle University, UK and a BA degree at Chinese Language and Literature at Wuhan Polytechnic University, China. Ang’s PhD was shortlisted as the Best Practice-Based Doctorial Research at BAFTSS 2023, UK.

Started with her filmmaking career as an observational filmmaker, Ang developed her filmmaking interests in first-person film, essay film and experimental film. Ang normally works as a solo filmmaker, she shoots and edits her own films. Ang is currently in post-production on a documentary film – Reading Jiaoxing Village II – Happiness, which is the second film of a trilogy about her ancestral village. 

Her first short film – The Ospreys and the Old Man (2020) was selected in The Royal Anthropological Institute’s International Ethnographic Film Festival, UK and was acquired for distribution by The Royal Anthropological Institute.

Her first feature-length film – Reading Jiaoxing Village I (2021) was screened with her keynote at the most prestigious documentary conference: Visible Evidence 2021 in Frankfurt, Germany and was collected by Duke University Library, USA; The Chinese University of Hong Kong Library, the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago, USA, CIFA, Newcastle University, UK.

Research statement

Ang’s current research interest is focused on documentary-practice based research; Chinese study related creative practice research.

Research outputs

Films:

  • Land, Land, Land (2021, 37mins).
  • Reading Jiaoxing Village I (2021, 78 mins).
  • The Old Couple (2021, 40 mins).
  • The Ospreys and the old Man (2020, 8mins 40s).
  • Dr. Tu's Medical Clinic (2020, 8mins).

Exhibitions:

  • FAT China exhibition, Foyer Gallery, University for the Creative Arts.

Conferences:

  • Keynote Documentary Theater performance: "Reading Virus" and film screen – “Reading Jiaoxing village I” at the conference of Visible Evidence XXVI, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Dec,2021).
  • Keynote Documentary Theater performance "Reading Virus" at Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival (Mar 2021).

Conferences (invited presentations/film screenings):

  • Festival di fine anno 2023 AdT, Suono movimento imagine, CAROVANA (December 2023).
  • Chinese Urbanisation Documentary Week, Oxford University (April 2023).
  • Panellist of Delving for Memories: an exploration of Wu Wenguang’s The Memory Project, Duke University, 2021.
  • Suono movimento imagine, CAROVANA (Jul 2020).

Presentations/film screenings:

  • BACS 2023, London, UK (September 2023).
  • aas-in-asia 2023, Daegu, Korea. (June 2023).
  • Film Screening – Reading Jiaoxing Village I, BAFTSS, Lincoln, UK. (April 2022).
  • Visible Evidence 2022, Gdansk, Poland (August 2022).
  • Presentation and film screening at 16th International Conference on Agriculture & Rural Development in China (ICARDC XVI) at Oxford University, UK (August 2022).

Research supervision

Ang is interested in supervising creative practice PhDs in all forms of non-fiction filmmaking. She is now supervising two PhD students.

Current PhDs:

  • Liaoliao Wu (second supervisor): Contemporary Chinese Neo-Noir and Global Film Noir: Bi-directional Influences.
  • Anna De Guia-Eriksson (third supervisor): Afterthoughts: Re-imag(in)ing representations of Spanish-Philippines colonial history in Spanish and Filipino cinema.

Awards:

  • PhD – Filming in Rural China: The Journey from observational to First-Person Filmmaking Practice (2022) was shortlisted as the Best Practice-Based Doctorial Research at BAFTSS 2023, UK.
  • Reading Jiaoxing Village I (2021): Award Winner of Mexico Film Festival Award; Award Winner of World Film Carnival – Singapore; Honorable Mention of Australia Film Festival; Honorable Mention of German International Film Festival.
  • The Ospreys and The Old Man (2020): Award Winner of Indo Global International Film Festival. Honorable Mention of London Seasonal Short Film Festival.

Grants:

  • Privacy China - Pioneer Project on Societal Transformations, Volkswagen Foundation, Germany.
  • FAT China Exhibition - Early Career Researcher funding, UCA, UK.
  • Filmmaker’s body - Pioneer Award Research Project, Newcastle University, UK.

Commissions:

  • Film screening, Wespace Shenzhen, China (July, 2022).
  • Keynote Documentary Theater performance: "Reading Virus" and film screen – “Reading Jiaoxing village I” at the conference of Visible Evidence XXVI, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Dec 2021).
  • Performance at OCAT, Shenzhen, China (Sep 2020).
  • Performance at NAO Performing Festival in Milano, Italy (Dec 2020).