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Sessions
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1.1 All the (Hi)stories: Godard
Haunted by Godard
Thursday, May 25
2:20 pm – 3:00 pm (CEST)
keynote speech
Jean-Luc Godard was haunted by cinema and his work reimagined film history. David Sterritt explores how hauntology—a concept developed by Jacques Derrida—can illuminate Godard’s oeuvre and his anxieties about cinema’s past, present and future.
The Eras of Godard: A Phenomenological Approach
Thursday, May 25
3:00 pm – 3:20 pm (CEST)
Jean-Luc Godard’s cinematic legacy is not a monolith, but a multiplicity of eras. Glen Norton uses a phenomenological approach to outline the great master’s cinematic evolution as a continual disavowal of his past work, redefining Godard’s oeuvre as a self-correcting, thinking entity.
Godard’s Chromatic Fabric
Thursday, May 25
3:20 pm – 3:40 pm (CEST)
“It’s not blood in Pierrot le fou,” said Jean-Luc Godard in 1965, “but red.” Tamara Tasevska, in response to this frequently cited Godardism, argues that the quote reveals more than the great director’s use of color as a means of Brechtian distancing—namely, his penchant to use color to highlight provocative connections between aesthetics and politics.
1.2 The Control of the Universe
The Biopolitical Potential of Postmodern Cinema: when Badiou and Žižek meet Aloni’s Local Angel
Thursday, May 25
5:00 pm – 5:20 pm (CEST)
By way of Badiou and Žižek, Oana Șerban analyzes Local Angel and Forgiveness—and their use of concepts such as radical grace, forgiveness, and normalization—to advocate for the biopolitical potential of Udi Aloni’s cinematic portfolio—and cinema in general.
The Dark Knight Trilogy: Fake Solutions and Real Indoctrination
Thursday, May 25
5:20 pm – 5:40 pm (CEST)
In Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, most critics saw a captivatingly creative reimaging of the superhero story, filled with a lot of action and suspense. Davor Džalto, however, sees something else: an intriguing glimpse into the (Liberal) capitalist ideology of class privilege, private property, and scientific politics.
Echoists of the “Anthrobscene” – We Better Look Up!
Thursday, May 25
5:40 pm – 6:00 pm (CEST)
Through an analysis of Melancholia and Don’t Look Up—two apocalyptic dramas which subvert dominant “Cli-fi” narratives—Gabriella Calchi Novati examines the cinematic representation of the “Anthrobscene,” that is, the Anthropocene with an obscene, echoism-rooted, twist.
War, Displaced People and Poverty in Contemporary Films
Thursday, May 25
6:00 pm – 6:20 pm (CEST)
Rahime Özgün Kehya discusses the difficulties war-induced displaced people face on the big screen—and in the world. Focusing on three selected films from as many different countries, she shows how discrimination and exploitation stem from poverty and underprivilege—and not the other way around.
1.3 A Single (Hi)story
War through the Lens of a Camera: Reflections on Seeing in the Work of Ernst Jünger
Thursday, May 25
8:00 pm – 8:20 pm (CEST)
Drawing on the works of Ernst Jünger and Edgardo Cozarinsky’s La Guerre d’un Seul Homme, Martin Heredero Campo explores how technology affects the way of seeing in both cinema and philosophy, arguing that the challenge posed by those first cameras in the WWI trenches persists today, requiring an even newer anthropology.
Is An Cailín Ciúin an Example of Deleuzian Minor Cinema?
Thursday, May 25
8:20 pm – 8:40 pm (CEST)
In An Cailín Ciúin, a family drama set in the 1980s, Irish exists in perpetual relationship with English. Niall Kennedy examines whether the film can be considered a work of minor cinema according to Deleuze and Guattari, and what implications it has for the linguistic politics of Ireland today.
Horror Film and Philosophy: Revenge and Forgiveness in Pumpkinhead
Thursday, May 25
8:40 pm – 9:00 pm (CEST)
What is the moral value of revenge? Is forgiveness possible or desirable after a grave injustice? Diana Neiva argues that these are two of the questions that Pumpkinhead, a 1989 horror film by Stan Winston, explores through its story of a father who unleashes a demonic creature to avenge his son’s death.
On the Immortality of Death: Beckett’s Film According to Gilles Deleuze
Thursday, May 25
9:00 pm – 9:20 pm (CEST)
Drawing on Blanchot’s notion of impersonal death, Diogo Nóbrega explores Deleuze’s interest in dying—not death—as an endless event that never finishes, and analyzes Samuel Beckett’s Film through Deleuze’s lens to unravel some truths about the very essence of cinema.
2.1 Only Cinema
The Posthumous Phenomenology of the Star Biopic: Kristen Stewart as Jean Seberg
Friday, May 26
2:00 pm – 2:40 pm (CEST)
keynote speech
In her keynote speech, Lucy Bolton explores how star biopics evoke the living star through Seberg (2019), where Kristen Stewart plays Jean Seberg. She examines the physical and aesthetic differences between the actor and the star subject, and how they affect the viewer’s experience, while considering the phenomenological aspects of watching a biopic and how it might conjure up the past star.
The Face as Icon: Rethinking Pictorial Representation through Lévinas’ Concept of the Face
Friday, May 26
2:40 pm – 3:00 pm (CEST)
What does the face signify in terms of phenomenology and film? How does it transform into an icon? When does the excess become visible? Can we argue that these film representations are not solely concerned with replication? Alexandra Okanovic seeks answers in cinema—art form most often criticized for its representational nature and perceived imitation of reality.
The Language of Film
Friday, May 26
3:00 pm – 3:20 pm (CEST)
In “The Language of Film,” Nemanja Mićić explores film as yet another story-making medium, and argues for a move beyond the hermeneutic principle of “merging of horizons” (Horizontverschmelzung) toward Geschichtenverschmelzung, “merging of stories.”
Understanding Cinema: From Semiotic Structures to Free-Floating Interpretations
Friday, May 26
3:20 pm – 3:40 pm (CEST)
Olena Verbivska compares two ways of interpreting films—one that uses film as a means to illustrate theoretical concepts, and another that analyzes films as unique forms of expression—so as to consider (via Deleuze and Metz) a third one, which focuses on the structures of film language.
2.2 Deadly Beauty
Towards an Apotropaic Cinema: Feminist Posthumanism and Representation in Tár, She Said, and Women Talking
Friday, May 26
5:00 pm – 5:20 pm (CEST)
Comparing three 2022 films (She Said, Women Talking, and Tár), Russell J.A. Kilbourn argues that they exemplify a new type of apotropaic feminist-posthumanist cinema which critiques anthropocentrism while challenging conventional cinematic tropes about women and violence through sound, off-screen space, and editing.
Ontology and Gender in Film Philosophy
Friday, May 26
5:20 pm – 5:40 pm (CEST)
Drawing on the work of Laura Mulvey and feminist film theory, Georgios Arabatzis and Evangelos D. Protopapadakis examine the gaze-regulating gendered body in cinema, from the classical male hero and female love interest archetypes to the contemporary challenges of representing diverse and complex identities.
Aesthetics and Political Philosophy of Fem Film Documentaries
Friday, May 26
5:40 pm – 6:00 pm (CEST)
Through their skilled use of several visual strategies, Varda, Rosler, Dielman, and Maggic shed light on the hidden labor and struggles faced by women in various feminized contexts. Senka Anastasova uncovers the profound ways in which feminist cinema challenge the dominant narrative of capitalist production.
Seeing Beyond: A Feminist Psychoanalytic Approach to the Politics of the Cinematic Gaze
Friday, May 26
6:00 pm – 6:20 pm (CEST)
Sofia Koukia explores the political significance of the cinematic gaze from a feminist psychoanalytic perspective, using late Lacanian film theory. She goes over the four different filmic deployments of the gaze, as discussed by Todd McGowan, and argues for a more feminist—and less gendered—cinema.
2.3 The Signs Among Us
Differences Between Comics vs Cinematic Storytelling: Formats, Motion, Duration and the Concept of Closure
Friday, May 26
8:00 pm – 8:20 pm (CEST)
Boshko Karadjov explores the differences between comics and film as media of storytelling. He examines their formats, motion/duration depictions, and closure concepts, arguing that comics have a distinct ontology that cannot be reduced to cinematic terms.
Movie as a Stimulus in Workshops for the Development of Critical Thinking
Friday, May 26
8:20 pm – 8:40 pm (CEST)
Bruno Ćurko shares some examples of how he used different films to initiate philosophical dialogues with various age groups, from children to pensioners. He discusses the main questions, themes, and concepts that emerged during the conversations.
Wittgenstein and Cinema
Friday, May 26
8:40 pm – 9:00 pm (CEST)
Ernesto Heredero del Campo explores Ludwig Wittgenstein’s views on cinema, with reference to the fundamental distinction of his philosophical thought (saying vs. showing), as well as how these ideas have been transposed into the cinematic medium, explicitly (Jarman, Forgács) and implicitly (Antonioni, Lanthimos, Villeneuve).
Cinema and Death: A Film-Philosophical Analysis
Friday, May 26
9:00 pm – 9:20 pm (CEST)
How does cinema relate to death and memory? Susana Viegas examines the concept of the “death-image” and the emergence of a new type of characters who have passed through a death and are reborn from it. Drawing on Deleuze’s analysis of Alain Resnais, she explores how films can create depersonalized dream-images that transcend the limits of perception and time.