The second international conference of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies wants to reach out to academics working in particular niches, and give their work a platform. Italian cinema and media turn to other countries’ productions for inspiration and vice versa. The lure of Italian cinema’s legends and the interest in revisiting its genealogy create bridges across global artistic languages in the effort to preserve harmonies and reconcile tensions. In moving away from mainstream pathways, the Conference also intend to get Italian cinema and media studies out of their canonical silo, engage with diverse academic communities, build new conceptual frameworks, and promote research beyond Western and Euro-centric bases to foster a more globally-focused and representative corpus of scholarship.