As global crises deepen and a sense of living in dark times increasingly emerges, many recognize a growing sense of despair. Is there still reason for hope? What can we still hope for? Why should we still hope? For ages, people turned to religion to find hope, to make sense of the world and to understand their present situation within a broader vision of the future. Central to the conference From Darkness to Light: Hope in Contemporary Cinema is the notion that film is akin to religion in the way it contributes to the experience and understanding of hope. Similarly to religion, film has mythological potential, it temporarily creates worlds of belief that offer new and deepening perspectives on the here and now, and it can invoke utopian or dystopian visions of the future. In these ways, film addresses the hopes and despairs of humankind. The aim of this conference is to deepen our understanding of hope and to embrace the potential of film in enabling viewers to engage with the world in a hopeful and meaningful way.
While the usual conference components of watching films and enjoying lectures are part of the program, the conference also includes interactive and experiential workshops in which we explore how hope is created in film and how cinematographic and narrative elements contribute to this. Critical theological reflection on the concept of hope is also sought. Moreover, we stimulate conversations between people from different regions of the world, who all bring their own experiences and perceptions of hope and despair, to deepen our understanding of ourselves and ours and others’ personal narratives of hope.
The keynote speakers for this conference will be prof. dr. S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate (Hamilton College, Clinton, New York) and prof. dr. Mariecke van den Berg (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam).
