Cultural mediation and transformative mechanism: An ethnographic study of the documentary organization CNEX and its training events

Abstract The role of the transregional documentary organization CNEX in Chinese documentary production is explored from an ethnographic perspective by examining its training events. I first provide a brief overview of CNEX and its aims. Using the framework of cultural mediation, I explore how CNEX, as a cultural broker, uses training events to develop transnational connections and mediates between Chinese documentaries and the international market. I then analyze two annual training events: the CNEX Chinese Documentary Forum (CCDF) and the CNEX–Sundance Editing Lab. Drawing on ethnographic data, I describe how these events are organized and how Chinese projects are transformed through the training processes. I argue that these training events function as transformative mechanisms that mediate and align local individual productions with international industry demand. These CNEX events help maintain and remake the boundary between the ‘local’ and the ‘international’ by defining specific documentary subjects, forms, and practices as ‘Chinese’ or ‘Taiwanese’, and others as ‘universal’.