Presented by Aalto’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture, SCSMI2017 offers a rare international film conference in Finland.

Running 11 - 14 June, this interdisciplinary conference is unique in its kind - in addition to bringing over 80 international key figures of contemporary cognitive film research to Helsinki, it also highlights several artist presentations and offers film viewing sessions.

Says organizer Pia Tikka, “We could not be more excited to have this incredible programme here at Aalto University.  It could not happen at a better time of year and the discussions promise to be engaging and inspiring. In fact, while Finland is famous for several international film festivals, it has not hosted a film research conference of this volume and internationality for several decades."

The Society for Cognitive Studies of Moving Image (SCSMI) is an interdisciplinary organization made up of scholars interested in cognitive, philosophical, aesthetic, historical, psychological, neuroscientific, and evolutionary approaches to the analysis of film and other moving-image media.

The SCSMI2017 conference is organised by the Department of Media and the Department of Film, Television, and Scenography at Aalto University's School of Arts, Design and Architecture, in association with the department of Film and Television Studies, University of Helsinki. The film department goes back to 1959 when it started as a department of cinematography. Today Aalto offers one of the most prestigious educations in film and media studies. Almost a half-decade later Medialab was a pioneer in teaching emerging technologies in digital media, and has since been applying cinematic storytelling in computer games and virtual reality projects.

The highlights of the conference are many, including a keynote by Philosopher Dr Paisley Livingston on "cinema as philosophy” discussing Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s relation to the ideas of Finnish philosopher and psychologist Eino Kaila.  As one of the key members of the Aalto University’s celebrated neuroscience project aivoAALTO, Lauri Nummenmaa will discuss how cinema may help to understand the brain mechanisms supporting human emotions.  Virtual reality is a word on the lips of many filmmakers today, and Dr. Asta Kärkkäinen, a Principal Researcher in Digital Media R&D Spatial Audio in Nokia Technologies will talk about “3D audio in immersive movies."

These lectures and many more can be found online in the conference programme.