Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek returns to cinemas with "The Pervert's Guide to Utopias," the third instalment in director Sophie Fiennes' series exploring his ideas through film, following "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema" (2006) and "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology" (2012). The documentary, which premieres at the Venice Film Festival on 7 September, matters as another example of Žižek's unlikely rise as an internet-era public intellectual, using cinema to expose the hidden utopian assumptions embedded in popular culture.

As in the earlier films, Fiennes places Žižek within recreated scenes from the works he discusses, including Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" and Hulu's "A Handmaid's Tale." One highlighted example is his reading of "V for Vendetta," in which he argues the film's real message is not the triumph of rebels over fascists but a mutual dependence between the two. The film is produced by Keeper Pictures, P Guide, SPOK Films, The Film Kitchen and Mattima Films, with Shani Hinto handling world sales, and an exclusive trailer has been released ahead of the premiere.