Cinéfranco
Toronto’s annual showcase of Francophone cinema, returns to the Carlton Cinema from November 7 to 16, 2025 with a rich lineup of award-winning features from Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa. This year’s edition foregrounds women’s voices, social dramas, and crowd-pleasing comedies, and features several films straight from Cannes, including the opening film Amélie Bonin’s Partir un Jour, Jeunes Mères by Dardenne brothers and Dossier 137 by Dominik Moll. All screenings are in French with English subtitles.
You can read my reviews of the films presented in the festival here.
Intermedias Review
News
Watch my interview on Global News, where I discuss the box office success of Superman directed by James Gunn, and explore how the film engages with contemporary political themes—including parallels to the rhetoric and politics of Donald Trump’s ongoing influence. Read my full film review of Superman (2025): Truth, Justice, and Geopolitics
https://globalnews.ca/video/11296601/political-undertones-in-blockbuster-films
“Superman” continues to dominate the box office, but beneath the capes and superpowers, some viewers are pointing to political parallels in the storyline. From references to global conflicts like Israel-Palestine and Russia Ukraine to broader commentary on power and justice, blockbuster films have long been a lens for real-world issues. Hudson Moura, politics and film professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, joins Miranda Anthistle to discuss how cinema shapes public discourse.
Chronique Cinéma
Découvrez les critiques de films présentées dans Dans la Mosaïque sur Ici Première de Radio-Canada Toronto ! Un vendredi sur deux à 17h30, je rejoins Myriam Eddahia pour analyser les œuvres marquantes de la saison. Dans la section Chronique Cinéma, accédez aux critiques complètes, explorez en profondeur ces films, et écoutez les rediffusions des émissions pour ne rien manquer.
Anthology Book
Interactive Narratives: The Evolution of Storytelling in the Digital Age
Edited by Hudson Moura
In Preparation
The transformative potential of interactivity within novels, films, games, and digital media has created a dynamic dialogue between human creativity and technological innovation. From the epistolary novel to immersive digital media, interactive storytelling has evolved, challenging traditional, linear modes of narrative while fostering new relationships between creators, audiences, and interactive platforms.
This anthology, Interactive Narratives, seeks to explore the multidimensional nature of interactivity across various narrative platforms in the XXI century. By tracing its historical roots and mapping its modern manifestations, this volume will investigate how the concept of interactive narratives is reshaping narrative experiences and the theoretical and practical implications for creators, audiences, and archivists. We aim to compile cutting-edge research and theoretical reflections highlighting interactivity as a narrative tool and a mode of user agency that adds complexity to storytelling while expanding the boundaries of narrative engagement.
Focus Areas of the Volume:
The book is tentatively organized into five core sections, each offering conceptual directions to help orient contributors regarding the thematic focus and structure. These frameworks are intended as points of reference to inspire proposals rather than prescriptive theories to be strictly applied. Contributors are encouraged to develop their ideas within these themes without needing to specifically reference or apply the outlined theories or authors:
1. Duality and Ethics of Active and Passive Engagement:
Drawing on Žižek’s theory, interactive narratives blend both active and passive user roles. While user choices may appear to guide the narrative, interpassivity reveals how users sometimes adopt passive modes in complex digital systems. This section invites contributors to explore how narratives shift between user participation and algorithmic controls, balancing user agency with predetermined outcomes. Or, contributors may reflect on the ethical implications of user manipulation in digital storytelling, questioning the boundaries of user freedom versus design control and potential biases created by algorithmic choices.
2. Technological Affordances and User Agency:
Building on Janet Murray’s framework of procedural and participatory affordances, this theme will explore how technological design and procedural logic shape the boundaries of user agency in interactive storytelling. Contributors are encouraged to examine how technological innovation balances freedom and constraint within interactive narratives, enhancing narrative engagement through user-driven interaction and system-generated structure.
3. Perceptual and Affective Dimensions:
This section focuses on how user perceptions of interactivity—including narrative complexity, emotional engagement, and user impact—create immersive and emotionally resonant narrative experiences. Contributors are invited to explore how interactive storytelling fosters emotional depth and audience attachment through perceived control and reactive content, where user actions seem to directly influence narrative outcomes.
4. Narrative Complexity and User Involvement:
Drawing upon Henry Jenkins’ concept of additive comprehension, this section will address how narrative complexity and user involvement are intertwined in interactive storytelling. Contributors are encouraged to examine how branching storylines, multiple endings, and user choices can deepen the complexity of narratives, creating richer and more immersive experiences without diminishing the overall structure. This section will explore how interactive narratives balance user participation and maintaining narrative depth.
5. Archiving Digital Culture:
Drawing on Foucault’s insights alongside practical approaches by scholars like Lowood, Kirschenbaum, and Rinehart, this section critically frames digital archives as sites of preservation and power, shaping cultural heritage and access to interactive media. Contributors are invited to explore the preservation of virtual reality, multimedia installations, software, interactive fiction, and video game narratives. This area emphasizes innovative solutions for maintaining these media’s interactive and experiential qualities for future research and accessibility.
This volume will unite diverse perspectives and pioneering research, significantly contributing to the rapidly growing field of interactive media studies.
About the Volume:
This volume will be part of the Interactive Film and Media (IFM) Book Series, published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis. The series aims to advance scholarly discussions on interactivity in film and media.
If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Hudson Moura (hmoura@torontomu.ca). We look forward to receiving your proposals and insights into this evolving field.active storytelling. Submission for the volume is separate from the conference presentation, and inclusion will be subject to peer review.
VIII Interactive Film & Media International Conference
Yet-To-Be-Known
#IFM2026 Conference
June 9-12, 2026, Online
The 8th Interactive Film and Media Conference is excited to announce its Call for Proposals centered around the provocative and multifaceted theme of “Yet-To-Be-Known.”
We live in trying times. Cascading crises—from climate collapse to social injustice to political upheaval—mean that uncertainty is a defining condition of our moment. But we need not see the horizons before us as insurmountable. Interactive Film and Media invites proposals for its eighth conference that engage with the yet-to-be-known. Here, the yet-to-be-known is interpreted as a space of speculative inquiry and creative possibility. We ask: How might we reimagine knowledge, practice, and being in ways that embrace the indeterminacy we now face? How might we work together to harness the potentials of the here-and-now in order to anticipate new futures?
We seek proposals that explore the speculative as method, as critique, and as world-making gesture; we seek contributions that foreground the emergent, the unstable, and the transformative. Topics might include speculative ecologies, more-than-human ethics, radical pedagogies, future imaginaries of care, experimental archives, and technologies of resistance. Together, let us consider how the yet-to-be-known might become a site of collective imagination and critical intervention.
SUBMIT A PROPOSAL
We invite you to contribute to IFM2026 by submitting a proposal in one of our three dynamic formats:
ACADEMIC NETWORKING
Join a global dialogue on interactivity, innovation, and emerging media futures. Sessions will also allow participants to share their views and profiles, setting the stage for dynamic and meaningful exchanges and networking.
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Hudson Moura, Chair (Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson, Canada)
Heidi Rae Cooley (The University of Texas at Dallas, USA)
Stefano Odorico (Technological University of the Shannon, Ireland)
Dale Hudson (NYU Abu-Dhabi, United Arab Emirates)
Leah Shafer (Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA)
Marta Fiolic (NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Il Sun Moon (Kingston University, UK)
Logan Acton (The University of Texas at Dallas, USA)
Sonali Sharma (Jamia Millia University, India)
Ar Ducao (NYU/MIT, USA)
The Interactive Dialogue Sessions, conceived by Professor Patty Zimmermann, are crafted to foster participant engagement through focused daily discussions centered around one of the conference themes. Each day, a prominent scholar or practitioner will lead the discussions, bringing diverse perspectives and insights.
FULL FREE ADMISSION
No fee is charged for presentation and attendance at this conference or publication in the journal.
COMMITMENT TO INCLUSIVITY AND EQUITY
At IFM, we are deeply committed to fostering an inclusive, equitable, and accessible environment. In our work, we prioritize inclusive accessibility and parity for protected identities including gender, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation. We encourage applicants to align with these values and contribute to creating a welcoming and empowering space for all. Get familiar with Our Commitments.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Subscribe to the #IFM list group to be updated on our deadlines and informed about our new endeavors.
INTERACTIVE FILM AND MEDIA NETWORK
Contact emails: ifmjournal@torontomu.ca | interactivefilmconference@gmail.com
Design Team
SUPPORT
Hot Docs 2025 Reviews
As North America’s largest documentary film festival unfolds from April 25 to May 5, I’ll cover a selection of standout titles daily, highlighting films that resonate with contemporary global issues and compelling personal stories. You can follow my English-language capsule reviews, updated each day of the festival, here. In addition, my French-language radio segment Chronique de Cinéma on Dans la Mosaïque (CBC/Radio-Canada) will be dedicated to the festival over the next two weeks, offering commentary and reflections for francophone audiences in Toronto and beyond.
Dossiê Jerusa
An hommage and an extensive collection of Professor Jerusa Pires Ferreira’s articles, conferences, and books’ reviews.
Intermedias Review
Revista Intermídias
