Globalization, new media and the computerization of culture have outlined new landscapes and undermined
notions and categories of interpretation both inside and outside Film Studies. The theoretical definition of film
has become even more problematic: film today is "diasporic", migrant and hybrid, reproducing the destiny of the
world. Film Studies over the past 20 years has moved in two directions characterized by a "heuristic of
rethinking". On the one hand, Film Studies looks ahead and asks new questions (Cognitive Film Theory,
Neurocinematics etc.). On the other, it looks backwards, reading both the theory and history of cinema in the
light of a different conceptualization of cinema, (New Historicism, New Cultural Studies etc.) or increasing the
importance given to memory (preservation, philology, restoration, neo-cinephilia in the age of the web). In the
past we asked «Qu'est-ce que le cinéma?», but today the questions have become: Where is cinema? Has cinema
always been what it is today?
