Fire and Fury from Afar: Mexican Films in China and Sino-Latin American Cultural Diplomacy during the Cold War
As part of her book project on Cold War cinematic exchanges, Ling ZHANG, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at the State University of New York, examines the Chinese reception of the Mexican film Espaldas Mojadas/Wetbacks (1955). Her talk explores how transnational film networks and cultural diplomacy fostered anti-colonial solidarity, revealing cinema's power to resist hegemony and shape internationalist consciousness amid geopolitical tensions.
You can join online via Zoom or in person in the IIAS conference room from 14:00 to 15:30 Amsterdam Time/CEST.
All are welcome; registration is required due to limited seating and to receive the Zoom link.
The Lecture
This talk, drawn from Ling's book project on cinematic and media exchanges between China, Southeast Asia, North Africa, and Latin America during the Cold War (1950s–1980s), examines the enduring legacies of cultural diplomacy and internationalist solidarity. By analyzing the reception of Alejandro Galindo's Espaldas Mojadas/Wetbacks (1955) and other Mexican films in China, it reveals how transnational film circulation and people's diplomacy fostered anti-colonial consciousness and solidarity despite geopolitical divides.
Despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties before the 1970s, China and progressive Latin American forces cultivated solidarity through civilian-led initiatives. Informal networks such as the "China-Latin America Friendship Association" circumvented U.S.-led embargoes, promoting mutual understanding through literary translation, film exhibitions, visual arts, language education, and musical performances. These informal circuits anticipated the revolutionary ferment of the "global 1960s," prefiguring shared struggles against imperialism and subjugation.
Between 1949 and 1966, China dubbed and distributed over 1,000 films from socialist and Third World nations, including more than twenty progressive Latin American works like Wetbacks. Released in China during the fervor of the Cuban Revolution, the film resonated with Chinese audiences for its critique of the exploitation of undocumented Mexican laborers in the US. Chinese critics hailed it as a powerful expression of national liberation and resistance to Hollywood hegemony, forging an anti-imperialist solidarity between Chinese and Mexican peoples.
The Speaker
Ling Zhang is an associate professor of film and media studies at the State University of New York, Purchase College, and a research fellow at the International Institute of Asian Studies at Leiden University (2024–25). She received her PhD in cinema and media studies from the University of Chicago. Zhang is completing her monograph Unruly Sounds: Chinese Cinema and Transnational Acoustic Culture, 1929–1949 and co-edited Socializing Medicine: Health Humanities and East Asian Media (Hong Kong University Press, 2025). Her work on film sound, Chinese-language films and digital media, documentaries, and the Cultural Cold War has appeared in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, the Journal of Popular Culture, Film Quarterly, Comparative Cinema, the Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Asian Cinema, and the Journal of Chinese Women’s Studies. She is also developing her second book, Sounding Wayward Journeys: Traveling Films and Media in China and the World, 1949–1989.
Registration (required)
You can join online via Zoom or in person in the IIAS conference room.
All are welcome; registration is required due to limited seating and to receive the Zoom link.