“I am afraid that other people do not realize that the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death.”
Welcome to FILM AND DEATH
FILM AND DEATH defends the hypothesis that to film-philosophize is to learn to die. This will be achieved by rethinking the innovations that film brings to recent philosophies of death and the metaphysics of time. A new criterion for understanding the relationship between film and philosophy is proposed that claims 1) that film-philosophy’s methodology is a meditation on death, and 2) that films think and have their own ways of creating novel thoughts that are not our own. One of these thoughts concerns death, a phenomenon of which we have no image but that film renders visible as a death-image (a direct image of passing time, facing the impossibility of any representation). We will assert that the cinematic experience is in itself equal to awareness of one’s own mortality, as a memento mori, without which we would not philosophize at all.
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Presenting Film and Death: A Conceptual Knowledge Map
We are pleased to announce the launch of Film and Death: A Conceptual Knowledge Map, a dataset developed within the FILM AND DEATH project. Guided by the focus question “How does film make us think about death?,” the map visualizes the network of relations between films, filmmakers, formal strategies, concepts, and thematic subjects, highlighting their philosophical […]
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4 Filmes, 4 Conversas: Saúde Mental, Trabalho e Género
In partnership with NOVA FCSH, Teatro Avenidas and the BANDUA project, the FILM AND DEATH project presents the Film and Debate Cycle 4 Filmes, 4 Conversas: Saúde Mental, Trabalho e Género [4 Films, 4 Conversations: Mental Health, Work and Gender], curated by Susana Viegas, Lucas Ferraço Nassif, Pedro Florêncio e Nuno Mora. Taking advantage of […]
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The Film-Phil Lisbon Seminars: Daniel Conway
March’s Film-Phil Lisbon Seminar will be led by Daniel Conway (Texas A&M University) who will talk about “Matters of Life and Death: The Nietzschean Imperative in Contemporary Science Fiction Films”. Abstract A major achievement of films in the genre of science fiction over the past half century is their collective success in depicting various iterations […]
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Susana Viegas at the International Symposium on Dying Places
It is an honour for Susana Viegas to take part in the “International Symposium on Dying Places”, taking place on 11-12 March 2026 at the Club University Foundation, Brussels (Rue d’Egmont 11). On 12 March, 11:30-12:30, she will join the panel “A Global Lens on End of Life Care Taking Place into Account: Insights from […]
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Lucas Ferraço Nassif at the Congreso Internacional Sobre Psicoanálisis y Arte
Our post-doctoral fellow, Lucas Ferraço Nassif, will be present at the Congreso Internacional Sobre Psicoanálisis y Arte: Al Encontro de lo Real, on March 17-20, at the Facultad de Filosofía, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. His presentation is titled “Contemporary Post-Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Shimmering Unconscious and Death-Images”. ABSTRACT How do moving images and sounds operate analyses of […]
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Extended Deadline! CfP Special Issue on Swan Songs: Philosophical Reflections on Death, Time, and Memory in Testament Films
We are happy to announce the new home for the Special Issue “Swan Songs: Philosophical Reflections on Death, Time, and Memory in Testament Films”! The editors have chosen to publish it in Arts, an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal (also published online by MDPI) devoted to research on all facets of the visual and performing arts, […]
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Welcome Vanessa Freerks, our new resident!
We are very pleased to welcome Vanessa Freerks as the third short-term resident to join our team. Vanessa Freerks (PhD, University of Johannesburg, South Africa) is a research fellow at the University of Fort Hare (South Africa) at the Centre For Leadership Ethics in Africa (CLEA). In line with her main research interests (consumer society, temporality, technology and […]
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New publication by Lucas Ferraço Nassif for Alea: Estudos Neolatinos
We are very pleased to announce that Lucas Ferraço Nassif‘s new open-access article for Alea: Estudos Neolatinos has just been published! Titled “Metallic Affects in Hiroshima mon amour: The Unconscious via Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari”, Lucas Ferraço Nassif’s peer-reviewed article is a frontier work that intersects psychoanalysis and schizoanalysis. The text discusses […]
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Welcome Natacha Gallucci, our new visiting researcher!
We are very pleased to welcome Natacha Gallucci to the FILM AND DEATH team as a new visiting researcher for 2026. Natacha Muriel López Gallucci is Professor of Philosophy at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL), Brazil, where she teaches in the undergraduate Philosophy program and serves as a permanent faculty member of the Postgraduate […]
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New publication by our team: “Death-Images: Revisiting Deleuze’s ‘Time-Image’ in Cinema after 1985”
As invited guest editors, Susana Viegas, Lucas Ferraço Nassif, Marco Grosoli and Vasco Baptista Marques are pleased to share “Death-Images: Revisiting Deleuze’s ‘Time-Image’ in Cinema after 1985” (Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens | Journal of Communication and Languages no. 63), published by the NOVA Institute of Communication – ICNOVA of NOVA University Lisbon. Marking forty years since […]
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