*CFP* "SUPERHEROES: A COMPANION", BOOK CHAPTER

As media texts show us superheroes from around the world(s), demonstrating extraordinary abilities and living a life shaped by a moral code, how we define their iconic features and cultural impact has been the focus of much scholarly debate.

Superheroes have proliferated and multiplied in the 21st Century, coming to prominence in film, television, and video game industries the same way that their popular narratives had begun to flourish in the comic book industry some eighty years before. Yet, while all of these stories and characters are tethered to these early years of the genre, through iterative retellings, reboots, and cultural readjustments, superheroes have consistently found renewed life in modern and contemporary re-imaginings.

Seen through examples, such as the synergy of “Batmania”, the convergence culture of the MCU, the conglomerate hierarchies that facilitate the Arkham games, or the multi-verse publications that enable spaces for a female Thor or an Afro-Latino Spider-man, superheroes continue to evolve through the conditions of their production and the cultural discourses that they engender. 

*CFP* "SAGAS, REMAKES E INTERMEDIALIDAD", I CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE NARRACIÓN Y MUNDOS DE FICCIÓN EN CINE, TELEVISIÓN Y VIDEOJUEGOS

 I Congreso Internacional de Narración y Mundos de Ficción en Cine, Televisión y Videojuegos

Sagas, remakes e intermedialidad

 

14, 15 y 16 de octubre de 2020

 

Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

La evolución el sector del entretenimiento audiovisual y digital ha causado una considerable transformación en la oferta de obras de ficción (filmes, series de televisión y videojuegos). No sólo se ha aumentado el número de producciones ofrecidas a través de las nuevas plataformas de streaming para los tres sectores, sino que se han cambiado la orientación de los contenidos, de productos singulares a sagas, remakes y franquicias ligadas a imaginarios ya consolidados en la memoria del espectador y avalados por éxitos precedentes.  En el sector cinematográfico la proliferación del fenómeno del blockbuster como estrategia para llenar las salas, ha ocasionado que se recurra a valores seguros, lo que lleva a constantes remakes de producciones pasadas (el caso de Disney volviendo a producir sus grandes éxitos de animación en imagen real, filmes de éxito de décadas pasadas como Blade Runner o IT) o a la explotación hasta la extenuación de sagas como Star Wars o las adaptaciones del comic de super héroes de Marvel. 

*CFP* "SCREENING LOSS: AN EXPLORATION OF GRIEF IN CONTEMPORARY HORROR CINEMA", BOOK CHAPTER

Horror films have long held a place in cinematic history as an expression of the monstrous, the un-nameable, and the unknown. They are a powerful point of catharsis in which viewers see their deepest fears played out onscreen, whether the threat is fully embodied or less concretely defined. As a result, grief and loss have always figured heavily in this genre.   

This collection addresses horror films’ treatment of loss, specifically grief and how grief shapes, magnifies, and escalates the horrific. Selected films should be from the last twenty years. This contemporary approach will lend the collection a sense of urgency. Moreover, in addition to conventional horror films like Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer’s remake of Pet Sematary (on which we would prize a chapter), we highly support explorations of less frequently examined films that contain a high degree of complexity in content and aesthetics. A24 films are the perfect example of this. Additionally, examinations of genre-defying films such as David Lowery’s A Ghost Story and Ari Aster’s Hereditary are especially encouraged.   

We value inclusivity and welcome abstracts that focus on international films as well as those who are historically underrepresented.   

*CFP* "ORIGINAL Y COPIA, DEL REMAKE AL MEME: ADAPTACIONES, RÉPLICAS Y RECREACIONES EN LA COMUNICACIÓN", NÚMERO 17, RAEIC: REVISTA DE LA ASOCIACIÓN ESPAÑOLA DE INVESTIGACIÓN DE LA COMUNICACIÓN

La presente propuesta tiene como objetivo abordar algunas tendencias de especial incidencia en la creación y distribución de contenidos: las narrativas contemporáneas basadas en la repetición, versión o reelaboración de mensajes preexistentes. La reutilización de material narrativo no es un fenómeno nuevo y ha sido objeto de interés desde diversos enfoques: desde las reflexiones sobre el original y la copia (Benjamin) y la recreación de mitos, hasta la intertextualidad (Kristeva, Bajtin) o la aportación de Genette, que nos remite a la acertada noción de palimpsesto, o hasta el más reciente interés por los remakes cinematográficos (Gray & Johnson) u otras adaptaciones del audiovisual, sin olvidar la actual vigencia de los relatos transmedia (Jenkins). Las posibilidades tecnológicas del universo digital están provocando, eso sí, una renovación de las lógicas de producción basadas en estas repeticiones o reelaboraciones, que favorecen incluso la participación de los receptores, quienes se reconfiguran como emisores de renovados mensajes partiendo del original (fanfics, memes, etcétera).

Asimismo, el intercambio de estos mensajes desde lugares y culturas remotas, pero con gran inmediatez, o la revisión histórica a través de contenidos del pasado, nos proporcionan un escenario privilegiado para estudiar el panorama de la Comunicación en nuestros días con una gran amplitud. Estos fenómenos de apropiación o reutilización afectan a todo tipo de medios, contenidos, canales y formatos que ofrecen producciones basadas, en todo o en parte, en otras preexistentes. Se da además la circunstancia de que este fenómeno es común a la comunicación informativa, de ficción, comercial, paródica, etcétera.

*CFP* "EAST ASIAN FILM REMAKES", BOOK CHAPTER

As the editors of a proposed addition to Edinburgh University Press’ newly launched “Screen Serialities” series, we are seeking abstracts for chapters that explore East Asian film remakes.

Over the past three decades, the subject of cinematic remakes has emerged as a major subdiscipline in film studies, giving rise to a host of critical, philosophical, and theoretical approaches that highlight the historical significance of iterative storytelling within and across different national contexts. Thanks to the ongoing efforts of Daniel Herbert, Kathleen Loock, Claire Perkins, Constantine Verevis, and other scholars who are drawn to the remake’s contradictory appeals and intertextual complexities, this long-disparaged category of filmmaking — once brushed off by critics as little more than a derivative copy or pale imitation of an original text — is now recognized as a legitimate cultural form in its own right, one that aesthetically reframes the distant or recent past while providing a paradoxically nostalgic vantage on modern-day issues. Indeed, with so many published studies of remakes currently available, it would seem that very little remains to be said about a topic that is already brimming with taxonomies and terminology unique to this most “bankable” and pervasive type of cultural production.

*CFP* "REPRESENTATIONS AS WEAPONS: CULT FILM AND THE POLITICS OF RESISTANCE", THE 14TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE AND FESTIVAL ON GLOBAL CULT FILM TRADITIONS

Cine-Excess: The 14th International Conference and Festival on Global Cult Film Traditions

Representations as Weapons: Cult Film and the Politics of Resistance. 

5th- 7th November 2020 

(Online).

Cine-Excess 14, in association with Birmingham City University and the Black Sands Educational Project, features an online academic conference, alongside film industry panels and a streamed film festival season of related UK premieres and retrospectives. A Panel of international filmmakers discussing the theme of ‘Representations as Weapons’ will be announced in late July.

Previous guests of honour attending Cine-Excess have included Jen & Sylvia Soska (American Mary, Rabid [2019]), Norman J. Warren (Prey, Terror), Victoria Price (Author of Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography), Pete Walker (Frightmare and House of the Long Shadows), Catherine Breillat (Romance, Sex is Comedy), John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, The Blues Brothers), Roger Corman (The Masque of the Red Death, The Wild Angels), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, King of the Ants), Brian Yuzna (Society, The Dentist), Dario Argento (Deep Red, Suspiria), Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins), Franco Nero (Django, Keoma, Die Hard II), Vanessa Redgrave (Blow Up, The Devils), Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust, House on the Edge of the Park), Enzo G. Castellari (Keoma, The Inglorious Basts), Sergio Martino (Torso, All the Colours of the Dark), Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, Blue Sunshine) and Pat Mills (Action Magazine, 2000 AD).

*CFP* LLAMADA A PARTICIPACIÓN, I CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE NARRACIÓN Y MUNDOS DE FICCIÓN EN CINE, TELEVISIÓN Y VIDEOJUEGOS

I Congreso Internacional de Narración y Mundos de Ficción en Cine, Televisión y Videojuegos

Sagas, remakes e intermedialidad

14, 15 y 16 de octubre de 2020

Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

La evolución el sector del entretenimiento audiovisual y digital ha causado una considerable transformación en la oferta de obras de ficción (filmes, series de televisión y videojuegos). No sólo se ha aumentado el número de producciones ofrecidas a través de las nuevas plataformas de streaming para los tres sectores, sino que se han cambiado la orientación de los contenidos, de productos singulares a sagas, remakes y franquicias ligadas a imaginarios ya consolidados en la memoria del espectador y avalados por éxitos precedentes.  En el sector cinematográfico la proliferación del fenómeno del blockbuster como estrategia para llenar las salas, ha ocasionado que se recurra a valores seguros, lo que lleva a constantes remakes de producciones pasadas (el caso de Disney volviendo a producir sus grandes éxitos de animación en imagen real, filmes de éxito de décadas pasadas como Blade Runner o IT) o a la explotación hasta la extenuación de sagas como Star Wars o las adaptaciones del comic de super héroes de Marvel. 

*CFP* "(DON'T) LOOK BACK: OUR NOSTALGIA FOR HORROR AND SLASHER FILMS", CHAPTER BOOK

On first consideration it may not seem like “nostalgia” and horror and slasher films have any clear connections. Usually nostalgia is applied to events and experiences that have a pleasant connotation, even if these pleasant feelings are a result of a rose-tinted view of the past. While nostalgia can refer to personal feelings as well as larger communal or cultural memory and pleasure, there is also an implied action to it- that someone is seeking to reclaim, or revisit a specific time period or place for an explicit reason. Applying this understanding to remakes, revisions, reimaginings helps us understand what the purpose of these reworked creations are, the work they’re doing, and how they build on and expand on an already understood and accepted set of narratives, tropes, characters, and beliefs.

Since the national and global trauma of 9/11 we have seen dozens of remakes, reboots, revisions, and reimaginings of horror and slasher films from the 1970s and 80s. Each work seeks to capture some element of the original- the simple understanding of good and evil, the audience reaction to scares, an aesthetic homage, the commercial popularity. If we shift our perspective to view these films through the lens of nostalgia, we can see that many of these narratives are grounded in trauma, the performance of it, the aftermath, how people survive and later work through it. Whether it is a movie, mini-series, television show, or video game, these remakes can be organized according to several subtopics that perform different work within the media and reflect different fears, anxieties, and desires of a specific historical and cultural moment, although the argument could be made that some texts belong in a variety of categories, and there is noticeable overlap.

*CFP* "10 YEARS OF TRANSNATIONAL CINEMA: CELEBRATING TRANSNATIONAL SCREENS: THEORIES, HISTORIES AND PRACTICES" CONFERENCE.

10 Years of Transnational Cinema: Celebrating Transnational Screens: Theories, histories and practices.

9-10 July 2020

De Montfort University

De Montfort University’s Cinema and Television History Institute (CATHI) invites scholars and early career researchers to the second conference on Transnational screens.

This event seeks to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Transnational Cinemas Journal (Routledge) that has just changed its named to Transnational Screens to reflect a changing streaming landscape. This two day conference will reassess the histories, theories, methodologies and practices in transnational screen studies.

Professor Rob Stone from the University of Birmingham will be the keynote speaker at the conference, others to follow.

*CFP* "RE-WRITING/RE-IMAGINING THE PAST", 22ND ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

The 22nd Annual International Conference of the English Department,

University of Bucharest

Literature and Cultural Studies Section

Re-writing / Re-imagining the Past

4–6 June, 2020

The Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures,

Str. Pitar Moş 7–13, Bucharest, Romania

The English Department of the University of Bucharest invites proposals for the Literature and Cultural Studies section of its 22nd Annual International Conference:

“I am all for putting new wine in old bottles,

especially if the pressure of the new one

makes the old bottles explode.”

Angela Carter in “Notes from the Front Line”

*CFP* CALL FOR PROPOSALS, SCREENING STEPHEN KING SYMPOSIUM

Screening Stephen King Symposium

School of Film, Media and Communication, University of Portsmouth

May 1, 2020

With dozens of publications – including novels, novellas, short story anthologies and non-fiction works – to his name, Stephen King has been an acknowledged publishing force for more than four decades. King’s works soon proved ripe for adaptation for both cinema and television. Ranging from Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) to IT: Chapter 2 (2019), and from the Salem’s Lot (1979) CBS miniseries to streaming series such as Mr Mercedes (2017–2019) and Castle Rock (2018–), King has been a regular fixture on screens large and small throughout his career. Linked indelibly to tales of terror and suspense, with a keen eye for life’s deepest mysteries and an uncanny knack for pinpointing sources of dread, King has come to symbolise the horror genre.

May 2020 marks forty years since the US cinematic release of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), an adaptation famously deplored by King himself though lauded by critics and subsequently held up as a landmark horror film. The recent release of Doctor Sleep (2019), a sequel to both King’s bestselling novel and Kubrick’s film, has helped renew interest in a tale of significance both to King’s body of work and to the horror genre as a whole. With this context in mind, the upcoming symposium seeks to bring together scholars with an interest in King’s work on the screen.

*CFP* "(DON'T) LOOK BACK: OUR NOSTALGIA FOR HORROR AND SLASHER FILMS", EDITED COLLECTION

On first consideration it may not seem like “nostalgia” and horror and slasher films have any clear connections. Usually nostalgia is applied to events and experiences that have a pleasant connotation, even if these pleasant feelings are a result of a rose-tinted view of the past. While nostalgia can refer to personal feelings as well as larger communal or cultural memory and pleasure, there is also an implied action to it- that someone is seeking to reclaim, or revisit a specific time period or place for an explicit reason. Applying this understanding to remakes, revisions, reimaginings helps us understand what the purpose of these reworked creations are, the work they’re doing, and how they build on and expand on an already understood and accepted set of narratives, tropes, characters, and beliefs.

Since the national and global trauma of 9/11 we have seen dozens of remakes, reboots, revisions, and reimaginings of horror and slasher films from the 1970s and 80s. Each work seeks to capture some element of the original- the simple understanding of good and evil, the audience reaction to scares, an aesthetic homage, the commercial popularity. If we shift our perspective to view these films through the lens of nostalgia, we can see that many of these narratives are grounded in trauma, the performance of it, the aftermath, how people survive and later work through it. Whether it is a movie, mini-series, television show, or video game, these remakes can be organized according to several subtopics that perform different work within the media and reflect different fears, anxieties, and desires of a specific historical and cultural moment, although the argument could be made that some texts belong in a variety of categories, and there is noticeable overlap.

*CFP* "THE FREEDOM TO MAKE AND REMAKE", ISSUE II, VOL. II, NORTH MERIDIAN REVIEW

Each year The North Meridian Review will also publish a special, guest-edited issue of the journal. For our inaugural year, the theme is “The Freedom to Make and Remake” and will be guest-edited by Mark Latta the director of the Flanner Community Writing Center and Instructor of English at Marian University.

Within the opening lines of his 2008 essay, “The Right to the City,” David Harvey writes, “The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.” Viewed from the current American political climate, the freedom to make and remake ourselves and the places with which we identify may feel more urgent now than at any time since the Civil Rights Era. Viewed another way, however, this freedom of revision and rewrite has continued without interruption, especially for those who maintain lives on the edges of consumer society. However, from the perspective of those whose lives have been intertwined with the cultural, economic, or personal dispossession of colonialism and white supremacy, Harvey’s “freedom to make and remake” was and is a well-maintained fiction.  The freedom to re/make is not a freedom without consequence, risk, or reward.  To better understand these outcomes and tensions, we seek essays, articles, and poetry of those who work to shape, make, and remake their cities through community development, activism, public art (sanctioned or otherwise), education (formal or informal), publishing, and performance. Special consideration will be given to community based writing and non-traditional methods of constructing knowledge.

*CFP* "REMAKES, REBOOTS, AND ADAPTATIONS", ONGOING BOOK SERIES

Twenty-first century media have seen a rise not only in remakes and “re-imaginings” (television series like Hawaii 5-0 or Battlestar Galactica, video games like Tomb Raider, or films like Ghostbusters) but also transmedia adaptations (comic book series becoming television becoming video games, board games and Hallowe’en costumes, a la The Walking Dead), works based in nostalgic callback (Ready Player One, Wreck-it Ralph), fan-written versions of media (Fifty Shades of Grey is fan fiction of Twilight) and genre-bending remixes (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). However, while a wider body of work exists on transmedia storytelling and adaptation, remakes are still a rich and largely unexplored subject even as interest in the remake phenomenon continues to grow.

Broad-ranging and multidisciplinary, this series invites analysis of remakes, reboots, and adaptations in contemporary media from videogames to television to the internet. How are we re-using and remixing our stories? What does that tell us about ourselves, our cultures, and our times? Multidisciplinary approaches are welcome from scholars working in areas such as gender studies, race, sexuality, disability, cultural studies, fan studies, sociology, or aesthetic and technical research. Titles in the series set out to say something about who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going, as read in our popular culture and the stories we tell ourselves over and over again.

*CFP* “REVENGE OF THE REMAKES: ADAPTATION AND INFLUENCE OF 1950S SCI FI FILMS”, CHAPTER BOOK

Revenge of the Remakes: Adaptations and the Influence of 1950s Sci-Fi Films is a proposed edited collection that will focus on the influence of 1950s science fiction films in later decades through direct and indirect adaptations. A great deal has been written about the sci-fi films of the 1950s, but much less has been written about how these films have been recycled, repurposed, and reused over the years. Science fiction has thoroughly saturated our own era. Hollywood, alone, produces over four hundred science fiction films annually, and many of these owe a great deal to films from the 50s. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between 50s sci-fi films and the explosion of sci-fi texts that have been made since, with the intent of unveiling their continued influence on the various themes and concerns of subsequent science fiction.

Certainly SF films were created earlier, but the decade of the 1950s is the first heyday of science fiction film. Many of these films, like Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), strongly reflect concerns of the moment, but tropes from Siegel’s film have found surprising new life in shows like Netflix’s Stranger Things. One of the most revered sci fi films of the 1950s, MGM’s Forbidden Planet (1956), became the blueprint for Star Trek, its movie franchise, and its growing list of television spinoffs. As these films have been adapted, recycled, and remade many, like 2009’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, re-focus central themes. In this case from 1950s fears of nuclear proliferation, to millennial fears of environmental collapse.

*CFP* "NEW FRONTIERS OF TELEVISION", CONFERENCE

New Frontiers of Television

Wroclaw, Poland

Organization: Institute of Cultural Studies, University of Wroclaw

Even though many have predicted its’ demise, television continues to be a very potent medium at the turn of the 21st century’s second decade. Available on the Internet, television content plays a vital role not only in the entertainment milieu, but also in the society as a whole. American scripted shows in particular have recently claimed unprecedented cultural significance. They are also now more abundant than ever before, with the famous “peak TV” trend showing no signs of slowing down. From a global perspective, it seems that the big Internet SVOD players are calling the shots, reaching millions of subscribers outside of the United States. However, this rapid expansion does not necessarily equal homogenization, and – as Netflix’s and Amazon’s international co-productions prove – it can facilitate new forms of global cultural exchange. 

The rapid expansion of internet SVOD carriers seems to be of particular interest to scholars of contemporary culture, as the portals in question recently became the primary source of entertainment for the digital natives generation.

*CFP* “JAPANESE HORROR: NEW CRITICAL APPROACHES TO HISTORY, NARRATIVES AND AESTHETICS”, CHAPTER BOOK

The cultural phenomenon of Japanese Horror has been of the most celebrated cultural exports of the country, being witness to some of the most notable aesthetic and critical addresses in the history of modern horror cultures. Encompassing a range of genres and performances including cinema, manga, video games, and television series, the loosely designated genre has often been known to uniquely blend ‘Western' narrative and cinematic techniques and tropes with traditional narrative styles, visuals and folklores. Tracing back to the early decades of the twentieth century, modern Japanese horror cultures have had tremendous impact on world cinema, comics studies and video game studies, and popular culture, introducing many trends which are widely applied in contemporary horror narratives. The hybridity that is often native to Japanese aestheticisation of horror is an influential element that has found widespread acceptance in the genres of horror. These include classifications of ghosts as the yuurei and the youkai; the plight of the suffering individual in modern, industrial society, and the lack thereof to fend for oneself while facing circumstances beyond comprehension, or when the features of industrial society themselves produce horror (Ringu, Tetsuo, Ju on); settings such as damp, dank spaces that reinforce the idea of morbid, rotten return from the afterlife (Dark Water)—these are features that have now been rather unconsciously assimilated into the canon of Hollywood or western horror cultures, and may often be traced back to Japanese Horror (or J-Horror) cultures. Besides the often de facto reliance on gore and violence, the psychological motif has been one of the most important aspects of Japanese Horror cultures. Whether it is supernatural, sci-fi or body horror, J-Horror cultures have explored methods that enable the visualising of depravity and violent perversions, and the essence of spiritual and material horror in a fascinating fashion, inventing the mechanics of converting the most fatal fears into visuals.

*CFP* "CINE EXCESS XIII: INDEPENDENT VISIONS OF EXCESS", 13TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE AND FESTIVAL ON GLOBAL CULT FILM TRADITIONS

The 13th International Conference and Festival on Global Cult Film Traditions

Birmingham City University Presents:

Cine Excess XIII

Independent Visions of Excess

7th- 9th November 2019

Birmingham City University (and related screening venues)

Confirmed Guests of Honour:

Jen and Sylvia Soska (Rabid [2019], American Mary)

Norman J. Warren (Terror, Inseminoid)

Keynote Speakers:

Dr Stacey Abbott, Roehampton University 

Professor Ernest Mathijs, University of British Columbia

*CFP* "BLUMHOUSE: THE NEW HOUSE OF HORROR", CHAPTER BOOK

In a span of ten years Blumhouse has amassed a film library of over 50 films that includes notable horror franchises as Paranormal Activity (2009-2015), The Purge (2013-) and Insidious (2010-), critically lauded films as Split (2017) and Get Out (2017), and box-office sensations as Happy Death Day (2017) and Truth or Dare (2018). The company was also behind a highly-hyped new installment of Halloween (1978-) and an untitled Dee Rees’ horror film focusing on the lives of black lesbians in rural America that is in development.

Despite emerging as an increasingly central player in the production of cinematic horror, Blumhouse Productions has slipped academic scrutiny. To date, there exists a small scattering of studies that partially focus on a company that has grown in prominence and commands significant attention from the business and trade press. To fill this gap, proposed collection will offer the first in-depth academic analysis of Blumhouse Productions’ horror films.

*CFP* "READING THE NEW GOLDEN AGE OF TELEVISION: ON CONTEMPORARY SERIES", ISSUE TROPOS: COMUNICAÇÃO, SOCIEDADE E CULTURA

We live in a new age of television series with more and more quality shows being produced every day (McCabe & Akass, 2007) not only for different channels (BBC, CBS, Fox, HBO, Showtime), but also for different (streaming) platforms (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime), not to mention the growing popularity of the web series. The current “Golden Age” of television is usually seen as having started in mid-to-late nineties/early 2000s until today, with series comprising longer episodes like The Sopranos (1999-2007), Six Feet Under (2001-2005), Downton Abbey (2010-2015), or the more recent phenomena of Game of Thrones (2011-2019), Narcos (2015-), Stranger Things (2016-), 3% (2016-) or Casa de Papel (2017); as well as shows with shorter episodes like The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019), Modern Family (2009-) or Black-ish (2014-). 

These represent just a small fraction of a major wave of sophiscated creations that rise in quality and in quantity, thus giving more options to viewers and also to directors, actors, producers and all those involved in those creations. For some, this may pose a problem (Jeffrey, 2018) since with the numbers of programs rising this also means that too many choices may overwhelm audiences. For others, this is a unique opportunity to see what television programs have to offer and how they challenge the viewer with their “ability to bring into focus elements of the existing world” and explore the contemporary and current affairs – political, cultural, social or others (Shuster, 2018).