Film and Death
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“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.”

Socrates, 'Phaedo' 64a

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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26/02/2026

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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20/02/2026

Marco Grosoli at Global Bertolucci (University of Cambridge)

Our post-doctoral fellow, Marco Grosoli, will be present at the Global Bertolucci conference, on March 5-6, at the University of Cambridge. His presentation is titled “Global Mobility as Veil of Maya. On Histoire d’eaux“. Histoire d’eaux (2002) enacts the Indian parable recounted in Prima della rivoluzione (1964). An old Hindu asks a young man (an […]
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25/02/2026

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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26/02/2026

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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24/02/2026

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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23/02/2026

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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19/02/2026

Welcome Daniel Conway, our new resident!

We are very pleased to welcome Daniel Conway as the second short-term resident to join our  team. Daniel Conway is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Texas A&M University. He has published and lectured widely on post-Kantian European philosophy, political philosophy, aesthetics (with a particular focus on film and literature), philosophy of education, and genocide studies. During […]
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26/01/2026

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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30/09/2025

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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ERC-2022-COG

FILM AND DEATH is a 5-year project funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (ERC Consolidator Grant n. 101088956), led by Susana Viegas and currently hosted by the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa.

Start Date: 01 Jun 2023 • Duration: 60 months









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Funded by the European Union (ERC, FILM AND DEATH, 101088956). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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