Lights, Camera, Action: Brain & Cinema
Fri, Oct 13
|Montréal
Samsara - with Santiago Hidalgo Following the screening of Lois Patiño's Samsara, Santiago Hidalgo moderates an interdisciplinary conversation about the impact of cinematic rhythm on the brain.


Time & Location
Oct 13, 2023, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Montréal, 1379-A Rue Sherbrooke O, Montréal, QC H3G 1K3, Canada
About the event
Samsara - with Santiago Hidalgo
Can the rhythm of films influence brain development in children? Can it be used to induce sleep in adults? These are some of the questions that will be addressed following the screening of Lois Patiño's award-winning feature, Samsara. This meditative work offers an immersive audiovisual experience and a springboard for a discussion about the impact of cinema on the brain. Université de Montréal professor Santiago Hidalgo will bring together researchers from different fields such as child development, neurology, and film theory to exchange on how the very structure of a film can play on our minds and health.
About the film:
Samsara, Directed by Lois Patiño
In the temples of Laos, teenage monks accompany a soul in transit from one body to another through the bardo. A luminous and sonorous journey leads to reincarnate on the beaches of Zanzibar, where groups of women work in seaweed farms.
panelists and moderators
- Santiago Hidalgo, Researcher in Film Studies, Université de Montréal and Director of Labo CinéMédias (Moderator)
Santiago Hidalgo is director of the Laboratoire CinéMédias and co-director of cinEXmedia, a partnership project “Ensuring Well-Being in the Screen Age“. His current research focuses on the cinema experience and on the notion of “film consciousness.” Santiago Hidalgo is also interested in the reception of film by children, a topic he addressed in a panel discussion he organised at the conference of the Canadian Film Studies Association (Toronto, 2017) entitled “From Primary Schools to University: The Study of Film Reception in Educational Environments”. At the Laboratoire CinéMédias, he continues his research into film reception and consciousness through the PREC (Programme de recherche sur l’expérience cinématographique). Santiago Hidalgo is currently a member of the scholarly committee of TECHNÈS.
- Ana Inés Ansaldo, Researcher in biomedical sciences, Université de Montréal
Ana Inés Ansaldo is a professor at the School of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montreal. She is the directors of the Brain Plasticity, Communication and Aging Laboratory at the Research Centre of the Geriatric University Institute of Montreal. Her research is aimed at developing interventions for adult populations with neurological communication disorders and their natural and professional caregivers. Her work is at the crossroads of human communication neuroscience, neurolinguistics and clinical approaches; it encompasses the neurofunctional, behavioural and social levels of communication and its disorders following various neurological diseases. Focusing on different dimensions of human communication, her multidisciplinary team develops digital tools including the use of artificial intelligence, customizable and evidence-based, for assessment, clinical decision making, rehabilitation and support of people with the disease and their caregivers.
- Sarah Lippé, Researcher in neurodevelopment, Université de Montréal and Centre de recherche CHU Sainte-Justine
Sarah Lippé is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Montreal and a scientist at the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre. Her research focuses on brain development, sensory processing and sensitivity and learning in healthy infants and children, as well as neurodevelopmental disorders risk factors. In particular, she wants to understand the prenatal and genetic risk factors leading to neurodevelopmental disorders, and their consequences on brain development, sensory processing and sensitivity and learning capacities. Her investigation methods are non-invasive and enables her to develop early screening methods and treatment efficacy assessments. Among her current initiatives, she co-leads a multidisciplinary translational research program to mechanistically understand neurodevelopmental disorders. She also leads the first inter-generational genetic-neuropsychology-EEG cohort of children with genetic risk factors, in which more than 400 families are tested using EEG and neuropsychology (Q1K). Moreover, ongoing contributions include the development of treatment options for neurodevelopmental disorders. Her lab is among the very first to propose EEG as an outcome measure in international and national clinical trials. Her team is driving the EEG investigation of the potential benefits of Metformin in FXS. She leads the neuropsychology and EEG investigation aspect of Canada-USA-European clinical trials for children presenting with autism. She is also involved in several national and international initiatives on infant EEG, aiming at creating a normative database to understand EEG signals maturation and to create a clinical tool for infants’ brain signal assessments.
- Isabelle Raynauld, Filmmaker, Film Studies Researcher, Université de Montréal
Isabelle Raynauld is a screenwriter, director and professor of cinema at the University of Montreal. Her research interests include the history, theory and practice of screenwriting in all its forms, from the beginnings of cinema to new technologies. She has written screenplays and directed feature films and documentaries, including Tuning The Brain With Music (2019); The Mystical Brain, winner of the Prix Gémeaux for Best Documentary in the Science category (2009); Histoires de zizis (2006) and Un Homme à l'Isle de Sark (2004). Her first film, Le Minot d'or, about the daily lives of five intellectually challenged people, won the Jutra Award for Best Documentary in 2002, as well as two Gémeaux Awards for picture editing and music. She has written a thriller in English with British writer and producer David Pearson (Arturi Films UK), and is currently working on a documentary on the brain and opera.