Not in This Life! Metaphysics and Cinema

Pera Film’s Not In this Life: Metaphysics and Cinema program, presented in the context of Pera Museum’s Giorgio de Chirico: The Enigma of the World explores the relationship between the cinematic and the philosophical, the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it.

The selected films bring together unusual stories exploring the nature of dreams, consciousness, existentialism, free will, our relations with others, and mainly the meaning of life. Though the program mostly underlines more recent independent productions, it also includes Richard Linklater’s 2001 made Waking Life, a film that embraces an idealistic search for the philosophical. Famed actor Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut work Lost River is a surreal tale about the housing market crash in the United States. Often mentioned alongside Ingmar Bergman, master director Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence provides an insight into a chaotic world of the