Cities and the Future of Entertainment

As a prologue to the Futures of Entertainment conference, this Forum will focus on the emergence of powerful new production cultures in such cities as Mumbai, Shanghai, and Rio de Janeiro. What do these developments portend for the international flow of media content? How does the nature of these cities shape the entertainment industries they are fostering? At the same time, new means of media production and circulation now permit individuals to produce content from suburban or rural areas. How do these apparently opposed trends co-exist? What is their likely impact on audiences and on the international media landscape?

Speakers include Sérgio Sá Leitão, president of RioFilme; 2005 CMS graduate Parmesh Shahani, now at the University of Pennsylvania and of Godrej India Culture Club — and who previously worked for Mahindra & Mahindra, one of India’s largest business conglomerates; and Ernest James Wilson III, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California.

The Forum will be moderated by Mauricio Mota, a co-founder and Chief Storytelling Officer of the Alchemists Transmedia Storytelling Co.