The digital and the rise of special effects have further blurred the boundary between cinema and animation, enabling new phantasmagorias to emerge. But what continuities and divergences persist between digitally generated phantasmagorias and those created through animated drawing? To what extent has contemporary cinema, with its special effects, intercepted—or perhaps betrayed—that “threshold within the threshold” unique to the animated line? What can an animated body do, in contrast or in proximity to a film icone? PHILM therefore invites contributions that explore the relationship between animation and filmic images, extending beyond the genres of cartoon or anime, to identify the theoretical implications that the concept of “animation” holds for the construction of moving images.

Argument

In Émile Cohl’s famous 1908 short film Fantasmagorie—often considered the first animated film in the history of moving images—white lines drawn on black card board come to life. In the opening scene, a man in a projection room is partially blinded by a voluminous feathered hat. Plucking the feathers becomes a gesture of “seeing better”: the removal of a “real” obstacle that blocks the phantasmagorias projected on screen. Taking up this metaphor, the upcoming issue of PHILM aims to explore the notion of animation as a rupture from the constraints of indexicality that typically anchor filmic recording. Here, animation is not limited to cartoons or CGI character creation, but is understood as a process inherent to any moving image—whereby a sign can “become animated.” Yet in whatway, and within what space? If something becomes animated, it does so within a hybrid and liminal space: an anarchic and schizophrenic zone of the image’s two-dimensional field. Animation marks the site of a chaotic “overcrowding of signs,” such that only through the super impositionof differing poses can something take form, move, and be perceived as alive. Within this theoretical framework, animation is no longer a genre, but an event internal to the moving image—a process that can emerge in cinema as well a sin animated films. Telling examples include the use of lettering in cinematic expressionism, the insertion of extraneous imagesin to filmic space, or the framing of filmic situations such as posters or textual references to other films. While cinema and animation may appear structurally distinct, many cinematic trajectories are marked by their capacity to venture into territories proper to animation, breaking loose from the constraints of screen-bound realism. The digital and the rise of special effects have further blurred the boundary between cinema and animation, enabling new phantasmagorias to emerge. But what continuities and divergences persist between digitally generated phantasmagorias and those created through animated drawing? To what extent has contemporary cinema, with its special effects, intercepted—or perhaps betrayed—that “threshold within the threshold” unique to the animated line? What can an animated body do, in contrast or in proximity to a film icone? And how might such inquiry reshape our understanding of the image itself, whose frame—rather than functioning as a constraint—comes to host asymmetric elements (drawings, letters, ideograms, or pictograms) that continually rearticulate its status? PHILM therefore invites contributions that explore the relationship between animation and filmic images, extending beyond the genres of cartoon or anime, to identify the theoretical implications that the concept of “animation” holds for the construction of moving images.

Submission guidelines

Please send an abstract of a maximum of 1000 characters (includingspaces)

by the 1st of September 2025 

to the editorialboard address: philm.redazione@gmail.com, indicating the titleof the proposal, the section of the journal in which you intendto participate (Scritture or Tracce) and a short biographyof the author.

Proposals will be evaluated by the editorial boardand the results of the selection will be communicated, by email,by the 30th of September 2025. Selected contributions must then be submitted by May 2026 and will be subject to double-blind peer review.

Contributions, written and composed specifically for the journal,must fall into one of the following sections:

• Scritture: in-depth essays dedicated to the specific theme ofthe single issue, between 25000 and 30000 characters in length(including spaces and notes)
• Tracce: shorter articles, dedicated to individual films or video-art works which are linked to the theme of the issue butbetween 15000 and 20000 characters long (including spacesand notes).

The volume is expected to be published by the end of 2026.

Journal presentation

PHILM: Journal of Philosophy and Cinema was established with the aim of examining the complex interconnections between contemporary society and the various forms of expression that constitute the audiovisual landscape. In the contemporary era, it is of fundamental importance to examine the shifting boundaries between imagination and reality, between icons and tangible world, between screens and practices, between the visual and the gestural, insofar as they contribute to the shaping of the cultural landscape of the present and future. The research conducted by PHILM will not only concern cinema in the classical sense but will also examine the broader implications
of the new media practices affecting our perception of reality, modifying our space-time coordinates and redefining the very meaning of the concept of experience and subjectivity.

The journal proposes itself as a research path open to transdisciplinary perspectives. Its philosophical vocation is nourished by the involvement of film historians and theorists, aesthetologists, anthropologists and artists who reflect on the relationship between cinema and thought.

Editorial Board

• Director: Gianluca Solla (University of Verona)
• Deputy Director: Maria Russo (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan)

Scientific Committee

• Emmanuel Alloa (University of Fribourg),
• Daniela Angelucci (Roma Tre University),
• Pietro Bianchi (University of Florida),
• Mario De Caro (Roma Tre University – Tufts University),
• Jun Fujita Hirose (Ryukoku University),
• Paul Kottman (New School for Social Research, New York City),
• Roberto Mordacci (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan),
• Viva Paci (Université du Québec à Montréal),
• Riccardo Panattoni (University of Verona),
• Luca Salza (University of Lille),
• Francesco Tava (University of the West of England),
• Enrico Terrone (University of Genoa),
• Fabio Vighi (Cardiff University),
• Thomas Wartenberg (University of Massachusetts),
• Cornelia Wild (University of Siegen).

Managing Editor

Nicola Turrini (University of Verona)

Editorial Board Members

• Raffaele Ariano (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan),
• Luca Cardone (University of Verona),
• Giuseppe de Ruvo (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan),
• Michele Pavan (University of Verona), 
• Maria Rosaria Perrelli (University of Verona),
• Enrico Redaelli (University of Verona).