Afterlife

Death is one of the few universal experiences of the human condition and, at the same time, one of the most mysterious. Throughout history, religions, spiritual traditions, philosophical schools of thought, and even science have sought to answer the same question: What happens after the end of life? Is there a soul, a consciousness, or some form of existence that persists beyond death?

Cinema, the art of the image and the imagination, has continually explored this enigma. From the earliest ghostly depictions to the most complex contemporary reflections on memory, identity, and transcendence, it has found countless ways to give form to the invisible—to that which eludes human understanding.

Bringing together works from different eras, geographies, and artistic sensibilities, this programme, presented at Batalha Centro de Cinema, offers a journey through some of the answers that cinema has imagined for states of existence after death. From past lives to intermediate worlds, through ancestral connections, experiences of mourning, and processes of transformation, the selected films intersect around themes such as the survival of memory, limbo, and the multiple forms of haunting—whether intimate, political, or collective.

From the poetic visions of filmmakers such as Jean Cocteau, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and Kaneto Shindō to the contemporary approaches of Courtney Stephens, Hirokazu Koreeda, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Shirin Neshat, and Gaspar Noé, this programme explores different conceptions of the afterlife, showing how cinema continues to reinvent one of humanity’s oldest mysteries.

Afterlife is curated by Justin Jaeckle and Lídia Queirós.