Movement as Immobility: A Conference on Film and Christianity will take place next month in Lisbon.
In Simone Weil’s First and Last Notebooks we find a note that describes the sea as “a movement within immobility,” the “Image of primal matter”, which leads this Christian philosopher to see music also as a movement that “takes possession of all our soul — and this movement is nothing but immobility”. Perhaps this is an even more fitting description of film, with its images in motion. Its movements can reconnect us with the movements of the world, those motions in which a mysterious sense of order, what Weil calls immobility, arises.
This conference aims at examining the connections between film and Christianity focusing on such aesthetic aspects that, while not rejecting film representations of religious subjects, give primacy to film style and film experience.
The event is organized by the Centre for Comparative Studies (CEC) of the University of Lisbon (as part of the research project “Cinema and the World: Studies on Space and Cinema”), the Nova Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA) of the New University of Lisbon, the Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC) and the Research Center for Theology and Religion Studies (CITER) of the Catholic University of Portugal. It takes place at the University of Lisbon, School of Arts and Humanities, and at the New University of Lisbon, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, on November 24 and 25, 2017.
The organization is grateful for the financial support of the Civil Parish of Alvalade.
Detailed information here.
Organizing Committee:
Adriana Martins (Catholic University of Portugal/CECC)
Filipa Rosário (University of Lisbon/CEC)
Maria do Rosário Lupi Bello (Open University/CECC)
Maria Irene Aparício (New University of Lisbon/IFILNOVA)
Rita Benis (University of Lisbon/CEC)
Sérgio Dias Branco (University of Coimbra/IFILNOVA/CEIS20)
Steffen Dix (Catholic University of Portugal/CITER)
Academic Committee:
Ben Sampson (University of California, Los Angeles)
Carlos Capucho (Catholic University of Portugal)
Diane Apostolos-Cappadona (Georgetown University)
Inês Mendes Gil (Lusophone University)
Jonathan Brant (University of Oxford)
Joe Kickasola (Baylor University)
M. Gail Hamner (Syracuse University)
Rita Benis (University of Lisbon)
Sérgio Dias Branco (University of Coimbra)
