- Dean's Office
Faculty of Arts
Hong Kong Baptist University
Kowloon Tong
Hong Kong
Mette Hjort
Hong Kong Baptist University, Faculty of Arts, Faculty Member
- University of Copenhagen, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, Department MemberUniversity of Washington, Scandinavian Studies, Department Memberadd
- Film Studies, Film Theory and Practice, History of Film Theory and Criticism, Higher Education, Learning And Teaching In Higher Education, African cinema, and 9 moreHuman Rights, Transnationalism, Nordic Studies, Scandinavian Studies, Hong Kong Cinema, Documentary Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Cognitive Evolutionary Film Theory, and Arts and Music for Health and Wellbeingedit
- I am the Dean of Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University, where I am also Chair Professor in Humanities. From 2016-2018... moreI am the Dean of Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University, where I am also Chair Professor in Humanities.
From 2016-2018 I was Professor of Film Studies at the University of Copenhagen, at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication. During this time I also held a Professor II appointment at the Department of Art and Media Studies at NTNU, Trondheim. I served on the Board of the Danish Film Institute, appointed for a 4-year term by the Danish Minister of Culture.
From 2001 - 2016 I worked in Hong Kong, first at HKU and subsequently at Lingnan University. Recruited by Lingnan University, Hong Kong, in 2005 to establish a programme in Visual Studies and to develop it into a stand-alone department, I was the University's Chair Professor of Visual Studies from 2009-2016. I served as programme director when the Visual Studies programme was housed in the Department of Philosophy and became Head of the Department of Visual Studies when the programme became a stand-alone department in 2009. In 2013, I moved into Senior Management, serving as Associate Vice President of Academic Quality Assurance and Internationalisation, a position I held for a two-year term. During this period a key task was to prepare Lingnan University for the Quality Assurance Audit of January 2016.
I have served on the University Grants Committee, appointed by Hong Kong's Chief Executive in a personal capacity and for a three-year term (2013-2016). Consisting of 22 local and nonlocal members, the UGC develops policies for, and funds, Hong Kong's 8 government-funded universities.
Previously I have taught at McGill University (granted early tenure in 1994), the Copenhagen Business School, Aalborg University, and University of Hong Kong. Visiting affiliations include University College London, the University of St Andrews, and Kyoto University.
I hold an Honorary Doctorate from Aalborg University (awarded 2017) ; since 2007, an Affiliate professorship in the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle and, since 2018, a Visiting Professorship at the University of South Wales.edit - Philosopher Charles Taylor (for the M.A., McGill University), Art Historian Louis Marin (for the Ph.D., EHESS, Paris)edit
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Focusing on "practitioner's agency" this book looks at the implications of the Dogme 95 rules for different creatives involved in the filmmaking process. It also explores the concept of a moral feel good film.
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The phenomenon of risk has been seriously neglected in connection with the study of film, yet many of those who write about film seem to have intuitions about how various forms of risk-taking shape aspects of the filmmaking or... more
The phenomenon of risk has been seriously neglected in connection with the study of film, yet many of those who write about film seem to have intuitions about how various forms of risk-taking shape aspects of the filmmaking or film-viewing process. Film and Risk fills this gap as editor Mette Hjort and interdisciplinary contributors discuss film\u27s relation to all types of risk. Bringing together scholars from philosophy, anthropology, film studies, economics, and cultural studies, as well as experts from the fields of law, filmmaking, and photojournalism, this volume discusses risk from multiple intriguing angles
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Introduction, Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie The Dogma Manifesto: Antecedents and Extensions Peter Schepelern, 'Kill Your Darlings: Lars von Trier and the Origin of Dogme 95' Scott MacKenzie, 'Film-makers of the World Unite!... more
Introduction, Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie The Dogma Manifesto: Antecedents and Extensions Peter Schepelern, 'Kill Your Darlings: Lars von Trier and the Origin of Dogme 95' Scott MacKenzie, 'Film-makers of the World Unite! Dogme '95 and the Film Manifesto Murray Smith, 'Characterisation and Performance: Dogme '95 and New American Cinema' Ib Bondebjerg, 'Dogme '95 and the Danish "New-New Wave"' NoIl Carroll and Sally Banes, 'Dogme Dance' Dogme '95 and Film Theory Jon Elster, 'Creativity and Constraint' Catherine Grant, 'The Director Must Be Credited: Authorship, Auteurism and the Films of Dogme '95' Paisley Livingston, 'Artistic Self-Reflexivity in The King is Alive and Strass' Berys Gaut 'Naked Film: Dogma and Its Limits' Dogme '95: National and Transnational Dimensions Martin Roberts, 'Decoding D-Dag: Multi-Channel Television at the Millenium' Ginette Vincendeau, 'Th...
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Preface Part One: The Geopolitical Imaginary of Cinema Studies 1. Transnational Film Theory: Decentered Subjectivity, Decentered Capitalism Kathleen Newman 2. On the Plurality of Cinematic Transnationalism Mette Hjort 3. Tracking... more
Preface Part One: The Geopolitical Imaginary of Cinema Studies 1. Transnational Film Theory: Decentered Subjectivity, Decentered Capitalism Kathleen Newman 2. On the Plurality of Cinematic Transnationalism Mette Hjort 3. Tracking "Global Media" in the Outposts of Globalization Bhaskar Sarkar 4. Time Zones and Jetlag: The Flows and Phases of World Cinema Dudley Andrew 5. Vector, Flow, Zone: Towards a History of Cinematic Translatio Natasa Durovicova Part Two: Cinema as Transnational Exchange 6. Chinese Cinema and Transnational Film Studies Yingjin Zhang 7. A National Cinema Abroad: From Production to Viewing Toby Miller 8. Aural Identity, Genealogies of Sound Technologies, and Hispanic Transnationality on Screen Marvin D'Lugo 9. How Movies Move (Between Hong Kong and Bulawayo, Between Screen and Stage...) Lesley Stern 10. New Paradoxes of Africa's Cinemas Olivier Barlet 11. The Transnational Other: Street Kids in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema Joao Luiz Vieira Part Three: Comparative Perspectives 12. Fantasy in Action Paul Willemen 13. Vernacular Modernism: Tracking Cinema on a Global Scale Miriam Hansen 14. Globalization and Hybridization Fredric Jameson 15. From Playtime to The World: The Expansion and Depletion of Space Within Global Economies Jonathan Rosenbaum Bibliography Contributors Index
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Released in 2003, Lars von Trier and Jorgen Leth\u27s collaborative film has been received as one of the most intriguing and significant cinematic works of recent times. The film comprises five episodes, each a re-creation of Leth\u27s... more
Released in 2003, Lars von Trier and Jorgen Leth\u27s collaborative film has been received as one of the most intriguing and significant cinematic works of recent times. The film comprises five episodes, each a re-creation of Leth\u27s classic film The Perfect Human (1967), but with five different creative constraints, or \u27obstructions\u27. This first issue in the Dekalog series brings together writers from diverse disciplinary and national backgrounds. Together the essays present a case for seeing The Five Obstructions as a philosophically compelling cinematic work that tests our understanding of key psychological, aesthetic and ethical issues: the role that other people play in facilitating self-understanding; creativity and its relation to constraint; individual style as an artistic problem; filmmaking as a form of play; the pragmatic effects of nesting works within works; and the ethical limitations of aestheticism. An interview with Jrgen Leth helps to clarify aspects of the films context of production, including von Trier\u27s manifesto-like call for works situated at the very boundary of fiction and non-fiction
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This chapter examines the institutional context surrounding talent development in the Danish filmmaking milieu, particularly focusing on the role of constraints in nurturing talent by focusing on the Sketch, a talent development... more
This chapter examines the institutional context surrounding talent development in the Danish filmmaking milieu, particularly focusing on the role of constraints in nurturing talent by focusing on the Sketch, a talent development initiative of limited scope and duration that nonetheless has had a lasting impact on the Danish film landscape. Launched in 2017, the Sketch was an initiative of the Danish Film Institute’s talent development development programme, New Danish Screen. Offering analysis of interviews with key practitioners involved in New Danish Screen, the chapter argues that the ingenuity of the Sketch lies in the use of constraints to create a robust basis for trust, trust being essential to the process of developing a film of genuine value as well as the talent of the filmmaker.
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This chapter focuses on Danish soft power, reform and democratization, and on dialogue and collaboration. Soft power here is as framed by the Danish Arab Partnership Programme, facilitating new forms of “direct speech” in the Middle East.... more
This chapter focuses on Danish soft power, reform and democratization, and on dialogue and collaboration. Soft power here is as framed by the Danish Arab Partnership Programme, facilitating new forms of “direct speech” in the Middle East. Particularly significant in this regard is the work of small-scale institutions such as the AIF and SIB, and, more recently, FilmLab Palestine (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark n.d., 67). Especially striking is the fact that many of the filmmakers who are gaining support for their independent documentary projects are deeply committed, as Sandra Madi puts it, to telling some of the “dramatic stories” that “go under the same title,” under “Palestine.” Soft power, it appears, is not a matter in this case of instituting certain desires and values, but of creating the conditions under which an already existing desire to articulate stories of deep personal significance can be realized, and this within an independent space offering scope for a whole...
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I have been working for some time now on developing an approach to cinema that would begin to recognize the significance of scale. The co-edited volume titled Purity and Provocation was a first step in this direction, and Small Nation,... more
I have been working for some time now on developing an approach to cinema that would begin to recognize the significance of scale. The co-edited volume titled Purity and Provocation was a first step in this direction, and Small Nation, Global Cinema an attempt to take the project one step further. The Cinema of Small Nations, co-edited with Duncan Petrie, was designed, through data assembled by a whole team of scholars (including such key figures as Dina Iordanova and Martin McLoone), to make possible a comparative analysis of small cinemas. In the two interview books, Danish Directors and Danish Directors 2, the practitioner’s interview is used as a means of arriving at an understanding of the challenges that filmmakers face as small-nation film professionals, and as a way of teasing out the strengths that are also potentially part of the ecology of small cinemas.
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I have been working for some time now on developing an approach to cinema that would begin to recognize the significance of scale. The co-edited volume titled Purity and Provocation was a first step in this direction, and Small Nation,... more
I have been working for some time now on developing an approach to cinema that would begin to recognize the significance of scale. The co-edited volume titled Purity and Provocation was a first step in this direction, and Small Nation, Global Cinema an attempt to take the project one step further. The Cinema of Small Nations, co-edited with Duncan Petrie, was designed, through data assembled by a whole team of scholars (including such key figures as Dina Iordanova and Martin McLoone), to make possible a comparative analysis of small cinemas. In the two interview books, Danish Directors and Danish Directors 2, the practitioner’s interview is used as a means of arriving at an understanding of the challenges that filmmakers face as small-nation film professionals, and as a way of teasing out the strengths that are also potentially part of the ecology of small cinemas.
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In her inaugural lecture, Prof Mette Hjort, Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Visual Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Cinema Studies at Lingnan University, explored and identified at least three contributions that... more
In her inaugural lecture, Prof Mette Hjort, Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Visual Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Cinema Studies at Lingnan University, explored and identified at least three contributions that documentary filmmakers make to our lives and societies. These include offering the possibility of encounters that help to make us more capacious as human beings by showing us the dignity of other ways of life; effecting positive change in those who struggle with depression, with problems having to do with low self-esteem, or with the effects of trauma; as well as providing “alternative” and deeply “personal” perspectives on reality. Prof Hjort had also put forward a number of recommendations to support the production and development of documentary filmmaking, especially in a Hong Kong context. She shed some light on micro-financing initiatives associated with the visionary non-profit organisation CNEX, audience involvement in local film festivals, and the role that film scholars have to play in helping innovative documentary film training initiatives to flourish
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In her inaugural lecture, Prof Mette Hjort, Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Visual Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Cinema Studies at Lingnan University, explored and identified at least three contributions that... more
In her inaugural lecture, Prof Mette Hjort, Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Visual Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Cinema Studies at Lingnan University, explored and identified at least three contributions that documentary filmmakers make to our lives and societies. These include offering the possibility of encounters that help to make us more capacious as human beings by showing us the dignity of other ways of life; effecting positive change in those who struggle with depression, with problems having to do with low self-esteem, or with the effects of trauma; as well as providing “alternative” and deeply “personal” perspectives on reality. Prof Hjort had also put forward a number of recommendations to support the production and development of documentary filmmaking, especially in a Hong Kong context. She shed some light on micro-financing initiatives associated with the visionary non-profit organisation CNEX, audience involvement in local film festivals, and the role that film scholars have to play in helping innovative documentary film training initiatives to flourish
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The article reviews the book Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, volumes 1-3, edited by Ian Aitken
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Following the two previous volumes in this series of practitioner interviews with Danish directors,Danish Directors 3 focuses on Danish documentary cinema. Although many of the directors interviewed here have ventured successfully into... more
Following the two previous volumes in this series of practitioner interviews with Danish directors,Danish Directors 3 focuses on Danish documentary cinema. Although many of the directors interviewed here have ventured successfully into the terrain of fiction, their main contributions to the thriving post-80s milieu lie in the interconnected areas of documentary film and television. Emphasizing the new documentary cinema, this book features filmmakers who belong to the generation born in the 1970s. Many of the interviewees were trained at the National Film School of Denmark’s now legendary Department of Documentary and Television. The term “new” also captures tendencies that cut across the work of the filmmakers. For example, for the generation in question, internationalization and the development of a new digital media culture are inevitable aspects of everyday life, and, indeed, of the professional environments in which they operate. A comprehensive overview of documentary directors currently working in Denmark, this is the only book of its kind about this growing area of Danish cinema
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Following the two previous volumes in this series of practitioner interviews with Danish directors,Danish Directors 3 focuses on Danish documentary cinema. Although many of the directors interviewed here have ventured successfully into... more
Following the two previous volumes in this series of practitioner interviews with Danish directors,Danish Directors 3 focuses on Danish documentary cinema. Although many of the directors interviewed here have ventured successfully into the terrain of fiction, their main contributions to the thriving post-80s milieu lie in the interconnected areas of documentary film and television. Emphasizing the new documentary cinema, this book features filmmakers who belong to the generation born in the 1970s. Many of the interviewees were trained at the National Film School of Denmark’s now legendary Department of Documentary and Television. The term “new” also captures tendencies that cut across the work of the filmmakers. For example, for the generation in question, internationalization and the development of a new digital media culture are inevitable aspects of everyday life, and, indeed, of the professional environments in which they operate. A comprehensive overview of documentary directors currently working in Denmark, this is the only book of its kind about this growing area of Danish cinema
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Dogma 95 , a manifesto-based film movement, was announced in Paris in 1995 by the Danish film-maker, Lars von Trier. As a result of an ingenious combination of meta-culture, performativity, and counter-publicity, Dogma 95 has gone on to... more
Dogma 95 , a manifesto-based film movement, was announced in Paris in 1995 by the Danish film-maker, Lars von Trier. As a result of an ingenious combination of meta-culture, performativity, and counter-publicity, Dogma 95 has gone on to become a globalized cinematic movement, with extensions to other areas (dance, computer game design, literature, politics, and city planning). The focus in this talk is on the Dogma collective’s millennium project, D-Day, which is known primarily to Danish audiences and critics. This intensely collaborative, experimental project involved shooting in real time in downtown Copenhagen on New Year’s Eve, the distance directing of actors from a central control room in the Copenhagen amusement park called “Tivoli”, and zapping amongst TV stations by viewers who were instructed to “edit their own film” using what was essentially a database of images of actors and ordinary Danes interacting in the capital at the turn of the century. The aim was playfully to document the state of the capital and thereby the nation, and to consolidate the nation into a single effervescent whole by involving the entire country in an interactive game with its leading film-makers. The suggestion will be that D-Day continues the Dogma brethren’s experimentation with meta-culture and its audience building potential, a potential that is particularly important in contexts of small nationhood and minor cinema. Inasmuch as meta-culture takes the form in this instance of three distinct approaches to cinematic authorship, D-Day not only contributes to discussions of cinematic authorship, but also helps to clarify the Dogma brethren’s polemics against the nouvelle vague in the Dogma manifesto
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Dogma 95 , a manifesto-based film movement, was announced in Paris in 1995 by the Danish film-maker, Lars von Trier. As a result of an ingenious combination of meta-culture, performativity, and counter-publicity, Dogma 95 has gone on to... more
Dogma 95 , a manifesto-based film movement, was announced in Paris in 1995 by the Danish film-maker, Lars von Trier. As a result of an ingenious combination of meta-culture, performativity, and counter-publicity, Dogma 95 has gone on to become a globalized cinematic movement, with extensions to other areas (dance, computer game design, literature, politics, and city planning). The focus in this talk is on the Dogma collective’s millennium project, D-Day, which is known primarily to Danish audiences and critics. This intensely collaborative, experimental project involved shooting in real time in downtown Copenhagen on New Year’s Eve, the distance directing of actors from a central control room in the Copenhagen amusement park called “Tivoli”, and zapping amongst TV stations by viewers who were instructed to “edit their own film” using what was essentially a database of images of actors and ordinary Danes interacting in the capital at the turn of the century. The aim was playfully to document the state of the capital and thereby the nation, and to consolidate the nation into a single effervescent whole by involving the entire country in an interactive game with its leading film-makers. The suggestion will be that D-Day continues the Dogma brethren’s experimentation with meta-culture and its audience building potential, a potential that is particularly important in contexts of small nationhood and minor cinema. Inasmuch as meta-culture takes the form in this instance of three distinct approaches to cinematic authorship, D-Day not only contributes to discussions of cinematic authorship, but also helps to clarify the Dogma brethren’s polemics against the nouvelle vague in the Dogma manifesto
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Within a period of just half a decade, partnerships between political elites in the Middle East and the governing bodies of various top-tier American institutions have led to the creation of a number of high profile (and often... more
Within a period of just half a decade, partnerships between political elites in the Middle East and the governing bodies of various top-tier American institutions have led to the creation of a number of high profile (and often architecturally remarkable) branch campuses in the region. A central element in a still-quite-novel “global network university”1 paradigm, the branch campus phenomenon is associated with those parts of the world—the United States and the United Kingdom—that have traditionally dominated the highest levels of the university league tables. In the Middle East, branch campuses operated by major American research universities with well-established reputations in the area of practice-based film education promise new opportunities for aspiring film practitioners, as well as the kind of capacity building that political elites committed to the development of thriving film industries consider relevant. New York University has operated a branch campus in Abu Dhabi since 2010, Northwestern University has run a campus in Education City, Doha, Qatar, since 2008 (see Hamid Naficy, this volume), and the University of Southern California has a significant presence in the region through the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Jordan, which opened its doors to students in 2008.
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Within a period of just half a decade, partnerships between political elites in the Middle East and the governing bodies of various top-tier American institutions have led to the creation of a number of high profile (and often... more
Within a period of just half a decade, partnerships between political elites in the Middle East and the governing bodies of various top-tier American institutions have led to the creation of a number of high profile (and often architecturally remarkable) branch campuses in the region. A central element in a still-quite-novel “global network university”1 paradigm, the branch campus phenomenon is associated with those parts of the world—the United States and the United Kingdom—that have traditionally dominated the highest levels of the university league tables. In the Middle East, branch campuses operated by major American research universities with well-established reputations in the area of practice-based film education promise new opportunities for aspiring film practitioners, as well as the kind of capacity building that political elites committed to the development of thriving film industries consider relevant. New York University has operated a branch campus in Abu Dhabi since 2010, Northwestern University has run a campus in Education City, Doha, Qatar, since 2008 (see Hamid Naficy, this volume), and the University of Southern California has a significant presence in the region through the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Jordan, which opened its doors to students in 2008.
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In the Nordic region, broad-based, enduring commitments to film and film culture find expression in the relatively long history of institution building in the area of practice-oriented film education. Different types of film training,... more
In the Nordic region, broad-based, enduring commitments to film and film culture find expression in the relatively long history of institution building in the area of practice-oriented film education. Different types of film training, capacity building, and talent development ensure multiple points of access to the field of film practice. In recent years the transnationalism in question has become more pervasive and has found robust institutional articulation, through the cross-bordered activities of various training and talent development programs devoted to film. DOX:LAB was created in 2009, as an extension of the Copenhagen-based documentary film festival CPH:DOX International Documentary Film Festival. The impetus for DOX:LAB was a perception of Danish cinema as essentially a national cinema, with the very national dimension of various institutions, frameworks and traditions imposing significant constraints on talent development. DOX:LAB operates through partnerships with a variety of well-established institutions and professional fora
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Introduction: More than Film School: Why the Full Spectrum of Practice-based Film Education Warrants Attention Mette Hjort PART I: EUROPE 1. Practice-based Film Education in Lithuania: Main Actors and Sites of Struggle Renata Sukaityte 2.... more
Introduction: More than Film School: Why the Full Spectrum of Practice-based Film Education Warrants Attention Mette Hjort PART I: EUROPE 1. Practice-based Film Education in Lithuania: Main Actors and Sites of Struggle Renata Sukaityte 2. Mapping Film Education and Training on the Island of Malta Charlie Cauchi 3. The Struggle for a Scottish National Film School Duncan Petrie 4. 'We Train Auteurs': Education, De-centralization, Regional Funding, and Niche Marketing in the New Swedish Cinema Anna Stenport 5. Divided Dirigisme: Nationalism, Regionalism, and Reform in the German Film Academies Barton Byg and Evan Torner 6. Sites of Initiation: Film Training Programs at Film Festivals Marijke de Valck PART II: AUSTRALIA AND ASIA 7. Beyond the Modular Film School: Australian Film and Television Schools and their Digital Transitions Ben Goldsmith and Tom O'Regan 8. Dynamics of the Cultures of Discontent: How is Globalization Transforming the Training of Filmmakers in Japan? Yoshiharu Tezuka 9. Learning with Images in the Digital Age Moinak Biswas 10. Film Schools in the PRC: Professionalization and Its Discontents Yomi Braester 11. Film Education in Hong Kong: New Challenges and Opportunities Stephen Chan
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... for Beginners qua Dogma film, that is, as a film that is presented as abiding by the ten rules articulated in Lars von Trier and Thomas ... In the second chapter, a series of issues are taken up,all of them relevant to understanding... more
... for Beginners qua Dogma film, that is, as a film that is presented as abiding by the ten rules articulated in Lars von Trier and Thomas ... In the second chapter, a series of issues are taken up,all of them relevant to understanding film as a genuinely collaborative activity warranting ...