Materialism and Geographic Specificity in the Philosophy of Film

Films are made out of materials, at specific moments in specific places.

But while philosophy of film and film-philosophy are today as strong as ever, a certain set of anti-materialist assumptions continues operating in these fields.

Philosophers of film tend to treat questions of the materiality of the medium as subordinate to representational and narrative contents.

Likewise, philosophical understandings of the ethical and social significance of the filmic medium continue to focus on the contents of films rather than the nature of the medium itself. These approaches can be surprising from the materialist perspectives of avant-garde and experimental cinema.

But while philosophy of film and film-philosophy have not yet incorporated the lessons of the materialist avant-garde, traditional film theory has tended to treat certain geographically and nationally specific avant-gardes as though they were geographically neutral: somehow standing in for the rest.

Other filmic avant-gardes belonging to other geographic regions, even those articulating compelling and innovative material views of the medium, have gotten lost.

Nevertheless, a unified, materialist philosophical view of film emerges once we pay attention to the Ibero-American avant-garde, which we can call recurrentist materialism.

Indeed, paying greater attention to recurrentist materialism and the Ibero-American avant-garde can provide an important alternative to dominant anti-materialist and geographically natural pictures in contemporary philosophy of film and film-philosophy.

This is what the researcher will undertake throughout the 24 months of the fellowship through scientific articles, the preparation of a book manuscript, teaching, the organization of a colloquium on the Philosophy of Film, and a two-part film series, which will include invitations to actually practicing filmmakers, as well as two workshops for philosophers on the technical and material properties of film.