Two much-anticipated releases at this year's Chicago International Film Festival work to spin cinematic splendour from 19th-century literary gold; Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of the Gothic novel "Frankenstein" and Nia DaCosta's retelling of the modern tragedy of "Hedda Gabler". Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" would revolutionise their respective forms, the science fiction novel and the modern tragedy, when they premiered at either end of the 1800s in 1818 and 1891. Whether through science fiction or psychological excavation, they strove to surprise their contemporaneous audiences with observations whose sharpness lingers today.

Neither has managed to retain a definitive onscreen version, but elements of both have found their way into works of film and fiction since. Hedda's mercurial resolve has seeped into heroines on stage and screen for the last century. Similarly, Victor Frankenstein's scientific hubris begetting tragedy feels familiar when measured against the science fiction heroes of popular film. How might new films, opting to either update their stories to more recent timelines or retain their period settings, offer to contextualise these stories for a new world?