This special issue of the journal is based around the themes of the Inhuman Screens conference, which was held last year on Friday, September 24, at the Sydney Underground Film Festival. This is the fourth special issue of the Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture to be based around the conference and explore the topic of screens—both in terms of their inhuman power, and their human likeness. Last year’s conference became the second Inhuman Screens to take place over Zoom, reinforcing key issues and questions associated with the screen and mediation. The conference has never-not featured online speakers. While the screen may seem to function as a pale imitation of life, Gorky’s “kingdom of shadows,” it may also afford a closeness and directness via the digital close-up.1 The very language so intensely and poetically wielded by Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan has become an everyday, often inartistic occurrence...

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