NANG: The Scent of Boys - premiere of issue no 7

About the event

An ambitious magazine NANG combines sophisticated design with insightful analysis of contemporary Asian cinema. Authors from all over the world and filmmakers themselves are looking at niche, avant-garde and borderline projects. A Five Flavours discussion with the editors focused on the latest issue of the periodical, dedicated to excluded sexuality and LGBTIQ+.

The official premiere of this exceptional publication was attended by the editors of the issue, Victor Fan and Earl Jackson, and the conversation was moderated by Bartosz Żurawiecki - a film critic, journalist, columnist and writer. The event took place in the festival bookstore Tajfuny in Kinoteka. 

NANG Issue 7: The Scent of Boys

Editors: Victor Fan & Earl Jackson

Issue 7 is dedicated to the Scent of Boys. Film does not convey scent directly, though it is embedded in our embodied relationship with the cinematographic image through insinuation, imagination, synesthesia, memory, and physical immersion into the smell of the movie theater. The moment those patches of light and shadow on screen hit our retinas, the cinematographic image is generated as a consciousness: a milieu that we can see, hear, touch, and smell. Moreover, smell stimulates erotic sensations and longing; it gives body to our desire. 

In this Issue, filmmakers, artists, and scholars ruminate upon scent in Asian cinemas and the way olfactory memories have informed their same-sex desires, creativity, and research. Through words, images, and scents, this Issue seeks to engage the readers in an affective environment, bringing to light this oft-overlooked aspect of our cinematic experience.

Guests

Victor Fan

Film Studies lecturer at the King's College, London, who cooperates with Chinese Visual Festival. Published in Camera Obscura, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Screen and Film History. The author of Cinema Approaching Reality: Locating Chinese Film Theory (University of Minnesota Press, 2015) and Extraterritoriality: Locating Hong Kong Cinema and Media (Edinburgh University Press, 2019).

Earl Jackson

Professor Emeritus from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is currently Chair Professor at Asia University, Taiwan, and co-director of the Trans-Asia Screen Cultures Institute in Seoul. He is the author of  Strategies of Deviance: Studies In Gay Male Representation, and numerous articles on queer theory, Japanese literature, and Japanese and Korean Cinema. His performance pieces have been staged in Minneapolis, Santa Cruz, Seattle, and Tokyo. He has worked in the Korean independent film industry as a screenwriter, line producer, editor, and actor. He played the villain in Barbie (Sangwoo Lee 2010). Jackson is currently completing a book on the relation of theory and practice in Japanese cinema.

Moderator

Bartosz Żurawiecki

Bartosz Żurawiecki – a film critic, journalist, columnist and writer. The head of film review section at the monthly magazine “Kino”. He won an award of the Polish Film Institute for his blog “Czego nie widać” and received Krzysztof Mętrak prize for young film critics. A co-founder and actor at the cabaret „Barbarzyńcy.pl”. Co-author of the books: „Homofobia po polsku”, „Autorzy polskiego kina”, „Parametry pożądania”, „David Cronenberg w oczach krytyków”. Author of novels „Trzech panów w łóżku, nie licząc kota” (Sic!, 2005), „Ja, czyli 66 moich miłości” (Sic!, 2007), „Nieobecni” (Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2011), „Do Lolelaj. Gejowska utopia” (Szafa, 2017), a collection of theatre plays „Erotica alla polacca” (Sic!, 2006) and a documentary book „Festiwale wyklęte” (Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2019).