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How does cinema imagine its own survival?

For the last 120 years, cinema has held a dominant position as a creative and entertainment medium, a cultural institution, and an audiovisual language for understanding ourselves and our world. How will cinema’s significance evolve in the years to come? How does cinema imagine its own survival, especially in response to the environmental and societal crises that pose threats to the survival of humanity and the planet? 

The Future of Cinema Conference Series is a conference held during the Locarno Film Festival, combining scholarly and academic workshops with public talks and events. The publication series edited by Kevin B. Lee brings together the key contributions and discussions from the yearly conference as well as the audiovisual essays created during the workshop.

By engaging broader audiences and involving prominent scholars to analyze significant shifts in film practices, the series aims to foster a dialogue that connects scholarly insights with wider audience perspectives on the evolving landscape of cinema and media.

"Cinema—not “the movies,” or “the image,” or “television,”—but cinema, this specific project, this discipline, this practice of a certain investigation, analysis and representation of ideas, cinema belongs to the material world. It is about where we are standing now." 
- Robert Kramer