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(Mariano Paz, University of Limerick)

Thinking across the boundaries of utopian studies, film studies, and the sociology of globalisation, this book argues that 21st-century cinema illustrates the rebirth of utopia as an open method grounded in cosmopolitan worldviews and aspirations. Rather than negating hope, promoting a fixed agenda, or depicting an exemplary status quo, contemporary movies such as Children of Men, The East, and The Hunger Games series articulate a cosmopolitan utopianism that vindicates egalitarian and sustainable futures. Re-inscribing the utopian within the political, many 21st-century films challenge existing geopolitical borders and the social barriers imposed by class, gender, race, sexuality, and birthplace. Ecocritical film spaces, caring protagonists, non-mainstream survivors, ecofeminist leaders, and cooperative networks prompt spectators to develop integrating dialogical imaginaries that contest patriarchal traditions, ecocidal progress, and neoliberal definitions of the global. Contemporary with climate change, economic recession, and global social movements, the films explored in this book re-stage utopia as a cosmopolitan method of critical resistance and transformative action-a process in the making that evokes a fairer world to be as much as it speaks of a world that is: one in which global interdependence has shaped not only risks, hostilities, and inequalities, but also inclusive horizons, holistic thinking, intersectional activism, and nurturing affects for others that have become part of us.