When the lights dim in a movie theater and the projector begins to click and whir, the light and sounds of the motion picture become the gateway to a multisensory experience. Moving beyond the oft-discussed perceptual elements of vision and hearing, The Multisensory Film Experience analyzes temperature, pain, and balance in order to argue that it is the experience of film that’s inherently multisensory, not the medium. Luis Rocha Antunes here explores the work of well-loved filmmakers Erik Jensen, Gus Van Sant, and Ki-Duk Kim to offer new insights into how viewers experience films and understand their stories. This is an original contribution to an emerging field of research and will become essential reading for film scholars.

Luis Rocha Antunes received the 2017 Graduate Research Award from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Kent. Luis has a Ph.D. in film studies for the University of Kent and a Ph.D. in aesthetics for the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His work explores fundamental questions related to film's​ philosophy of perception.