General Coordinator: João Mário Grilo.
Considered for many years a small field of academic research, philosophy of cinema has been gaining increasing importance. This project is located within this lively field, virtually unknown in Portugal with the exception of Gilles Deleuze's influential two books on cinema, where film is also seen as philosophy. The fundamental idea is that films provide new tools, problems and prospects able to lead us to rethink philosophical issues and methodologies. The project will be developed in these complementary lines of research:
cognitivist, related with the application of the cognitive sciences to the film experience;
theoretical-critical, interested in personal, cultural, social, and political issues raised by the films.
The research project encompasses three areas of work, each one with specific expected results:
1) production of a Compendium (Cinema: A Philosophical Compendium);
2) activities of a Laboratory (Laboratory for Advanced Research in Film and Philosophy);
3) a Pedagogy initiative (Philosophy Through Film).
