Cinema & Philosophy at Nimas: a film series
All great films are philosophical — not because cinema seeks to apply or illustrate philosophical concepts, but rather because cinema is itself a distinctive form of reflective thought.
This is the premise behind the Cinema & Philosophy at Nimas film series. Throughout the 2026/27 academic year, the series will present one screening per month, featuring major works from film history selected and discussed by researchers and lecturers from the NOVA Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA) and the NOVA University Lisbon Master’s programmes in Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics and Artistic Studies: Maria João Mayer Branco, João Pedro Cachopo, Nélio Conceição, João Constâncio, Bartholomew Ryan and Paolo Stellino.
Thursday, 3 December at 18h
Screening of Winter Light, directed by Ingmar Bergman
Commentary by Paolo Stellino
NATTVARDSGÄSTERNA
Winter Light
by Ingmar Bergman
With Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand, Gunnel Lindblom
Sweden, 1963 – 81′
trailer
Small-town pastor Tomas performs his duties mechanically before a dwindling congregation, including his stubbornly devoted lover, Märta. When he is asked to assuage a troubled parishioner’s fear of nuclear annihilation, Tomas is terrified to find that he can provide nothing but his own doubt.
Paolo Stellino is an Appointed Research Fellow at the NOVA Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA) and an Invited Professor in the Department of Philosophy at NOVA FCSH, where he teaches the course Philosophy and Cinema (MA in Aesthetics and Artistic Studies). His main areas of interest are the history of philosophy (the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular attention to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche), the philosophy of film, and ethics (in particular, the philosophy of suicide). He is also interested in the relationship between philosophy and literature. He is the author of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky: On the Verge of Nihilism (Peter Lang, 2015), Philosophical Perspectives on Suicide: Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein (Palgrave, 2020), and Nietzsche sullo schermo. Saggi di filosofia del cinema (Meltemi, 2025). He is the co-editor of several volumes, including Nietzsche et le relativisme (Ousia, 2019), Violence and Nihilism (de Gruyter, 2022), and The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Suicide (Oxford University Press, 2025).