What is cinema becoming? All around us--in the laboratory, in theme parks and museums, on optical media and home computers, across the WWW--stories are being transformed by technological possibility. As the audience gains greater interactive control of the content and experience of story, there is an attendant shift in how the "society of audience" forms around the story object. In these new media forms (which we collectively label Interactive Cinema) we liken the narrative to a shape-shifter which transforms its appearance by dynamically reconfiguring its component parts and perspectives. In order to create stories which are personalizable and conversational, we must create systems which know about the structure, form and content of narrative, and which can sense and respond to the desires of the audience. We are effectively repositioning the viewer--both physically and psychologically--from outside the story form. Research in Interactive Cinema engages us in collaborative construction of ever more ambitious distributed story spaces and content scenarios.