The leisure of images: Some thoughts on cinema and perception from À Tarde (2017)

In this session, we will watch and discuss the film À Tarde (2017), by Pedro Florêncio. After the screening, several issues will be raised by the author, such as: the imprisonment of perception and school incarceration, sound-envelopment and television hypnosis, the potentialities of childhood and the impotence of old age, the ellipsis of active life and of profound boredom, the human gaze and that of animals, the closed and the open. Thinkers such as Raymond Bellour, Hanna Arendt, Byung-Chul Han and Giorgio Agamben will be summoned, as well as the influential work of visual artists such as James Benning and Chantal Akerman.

Bio

Pedro Florêncio graduated at Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema, followed by a Master’s in Cinema and Television at NOVA FCSH and a PhD in Arts at the University of Lisbon. He directed, among others, the films À Tarde [Afternoon] (2017) and Turno do Dia [Day Shift] (2019). He has several publications on cinema and is a professor and researcher at NOVA FCSH.