The first video in the Phenomenology of Perception Around the World series is They Roam Together. The film will be launched in an online webinar on 4 December 2020, 13h-14h EST (Montreal), with the filmmakers Antony Fredriksson (Finland), Veronika Janatková (Czech Republic), hosted by David Morris (Canada). Stay tuned to this site for the registration link, coming soon.They Roam Together illustrates some pivotal ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty concerning intercorporeality and shared perception. The film investigates the question: How come two beings, having two different kinds of sense of perception, perceive the same things? Or do they?

The film invites the viewer on a journey that explores these philosophical questions against the backdrop of a small Czech village. It wanders and wonders with its main characters, in a triptych that dives into daily situations and inspects the way perception is shared between human beings, and humans and non-human animals.

The film’s intimate visual language explores our ability to share our sight, our hearing and our attention with another living being. It approaches questions concerning embodiment and shared perception through observations of the protagonists’s experience of space and the surrounding landscapes and soundscapes. Guided by the subtle voice-over of personal reflections of the protagonist and quotes by Merleau-Ponty, the film aims to visualize their experience of watching, feeling, smelling, and noticing, in communion.