Cinema & Politics – Film programme and Discussions
Examined Life
Astra Taylor
2008 | 88min
Trailer
Examined Life pulls philosophy out of academic journals and classrooms, and puts it back on the streets.
In this film, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas.
Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Slavoj Žižek questions current beliefs about the environment while sifting through a garbage dump. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West — perhaps America’s best-known public intellectual — compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy’s power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it.
Featuring Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor.
The session on May 19, on Examined Life, is hosted by PENHA SCO Arte Cooperativa (R. Neves Ferreira 10B, 1170-274 Lisboa), and starts at 5 pm. With the participation of Susana Viegas, researcher in Film Philosophy at IFILNOVA and member of the research group Cinema & Politics: Philosophical Approaches, and Lucas Ferraço Nassif, psychoanalyst and director, PhD in Literature, Culture and Contemporaneity from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.
Free admission.
Cinema & Politics
Cinema & Politics is a film and discussions programme that proposes a critical and reflective analysis of the impact of cinema on contemporary society, addressing philosophical, socio-economic and socio-cultural issues. Through a careful selection of films that explore relevant themes, such as power, democracy, (in)equality, freedom, justice, resistance, memory, ecology, globalization, among others, this cycle aims to stimulate debate and reflection on the relevance of cinema in understanding today’s world.
The programme also offers a space for discussion and exchange of ideas – the sessions will always be followed by discussions, moderated by researchers and students, with the participation of guests with a direct connection to the proposed theme, thus seeking to deepen reflection and encourage the collective construction of the knowledge.
The programme is organized by the research group Cinema & Politics: Philosophical Approaches, within the scope of the activities of the Laboratory of Cinema and Philosophy (CineLab) and with the support of the Laboratory of Dissemination (OutLab), in collaboration with PENHA SCO Arte Cooperativa.