The Real of Reality - International Conference on Philosophy and Film

Photography and film in particular paved the way for complex philosophical questions regarding the nature of reality and its mechanical reproduction. Despite their image-based character, photography and film are not simply copies of reality but have the ability to shape reality itself. This shaping happens through pictures as well as through narrations. By means of their presence, these apparatus-based images of reality tend to replace reality. This is an inconspicuous process that already affects our everyday life profoundly. What does film show? Do we have access to reality that is not based on images or narrations? And what can film and its analysis contribute to philosophical debates on the real?

These are questions we are asking to engage in a dialogue between philosophy and film. For five days, more than one hundred philosophers, media scholars, and filmmakers will connect philosophical theory with cinematic practice and open up new ideas and concepts. To accompany the program, there will be film screenings of documentaries of the invited filmmakers.

Participation in the Conference is also possible without the presentation of a paper.

The conference will be held in English.