The conference will consider the topic of how systemic institutional, legislative, and technological changes within the screen industries have influenced production, content, distribution and reception. The main organizers of the conference are the Institute of Theatre and Film Research, the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and the Czech Society for Film Studies.

The conference continues to provide a platform for the interdisciplinary examination of media in this region while facilitating productive exchanges between industry professionals and scholars. This year’s theme reflects the conference location of Slovakia, a nation which saw its domestic cinema come close to perishing in the 1990s, only to see it re-emerge as a stable media hub after 2004, a time when the local industry needed to respond to global technological developments such as digitization.

On 19 November, the conference will be preceded by a pre-conference meeting in the Czech and Slovak languages, presentations introducing research projects, and a panel examining the impact of digitization on production, distribution, and legislation.

The conference has been supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency, the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, Masaryk University, and the Czech Society of Film Studies.