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Call for Papers - The 3rd International Baltic NeuroCine Conference

03-01-2026

The 3rd International Baltic NeuroCine conference 2026, hosted by the FilmEU Center of Excellence FILMIND, invites interdisciplinary contributors to brainstorm together on: 

  • How tacit skills and experiential heuristics are reflected in the professional film practices
  • How expertise can be observed in verbal accounts, actions, and psychophysiology
  • To what extent such insights may be generalized across other practical domains of expertise, for example, simulated situations in education and healthcare.

Conference: The 3rd International Baltic NeuroCine conference 2026

Dates: Friday April 24th and Saturday April 25th, 2026

Location: Tallinn University, Estonia

Cognitive neuroscience studies have provided evidence for the plasticity of the brain’s functional networks in the cases of professional expertise, such as with dancers [1], musicians [2], and filmmakers [3]. During their professional practice, filmmakers are argued to develop a type of embodied, enactive authorship [4,5]. Such perceptual professionalisation [6] builds on experiential heuristics and tacit skills learned by doing, in concert with practical filmmaking conventions passed from experienced filmmakers to novices. However, until recent years, cognitive studies on the creative processes of professional filmmakers have been almost non-existent. While longitudinal studies on films have generated knowledge on narrative structures [7], studies on creative processes of film editors are still rare [8,9]. Examinations of embodied practices of film sound designers are equally rare, with only a few studies examining the artist’s work [10]. Similarly, studies on cinematographers have focused on mainly the technical means of image generation, while the embodied processes of cinematographers in action have only recently been taken into focus in cognitive film studies [11,12]. 

The 3rd International Baltic NeuroCine conference 2026 encourages presenters who are hands-on filmmakers, screenwriters, sound designers, cinematographers, set designers, directors, actors, among others, as well as film scholars, psychologists, and neuroscientists with a focus on the cognitive processes of creative practices. We trust that the benefits of interdisciplinary studies on tacit skills and experiential heuristics of filmmaking are not limited to the film community but extend beyond it into other domains of creativity and development of professional expertise.

Keynote 

Robert Marchand: How can actors’ professional embodied skills be employed in training medical staff and students via simulated situations in psychiatry and medical healthcare?

Dr. Robert Marchand is the foremost expert in the Character-based Improvisation (CBI) Process and teaches this process all over the world. He has created workshops for actors, filmmakers and writers in many locations and many languages. He has also conducted advanced workshops for various acting and film academies as well as mentored numerous filmmakers, running dedicated workshops tailored for their specific needs.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Submit to Este endereço de email está protegido contra piratas. Necessita ter o JavaScript autorizado para o visualizar. 

  1. A cover page with your name, affiliation, bio (150 words), and contact email
  2. An anonymized page with presentation format, abstract (350-500 words) & references (5)

When submitting, please select preferred type of presentation:

  1. Presentations including Q&A (30 min)
  2. Presentations by filmmaker-scientist pair including Q&A (40 min)
  3. Doctoral student case studies (20 min)
  4. Workshop proposals
  5. Demonstrations or screenings related to the theme

 

KEY DATES FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

  • January 20, 2026: Submission deadline 
  • February 20, 2026: Notification of acceptance
  • March 31, 2026: Last day for early bird confirmation of participation for presenters
  • April 24 & 25, 2026: Conference days

 

All information is subject to possible changes, see conference webpages. 

For inquiries, please contact Este endereço de email está protegido contra piratas. Necessita ter o JavaScript autorizado para o visualizar.

 

NEUROCINE2026 & CoE FILMIND TEAM

 

The Baltic NeuroCine research group at BFM is led by the research professor Dr. Pia Tikka and cinematographer Dr. Elen Lotman. Activities of the 3rd Baltic NeuroCine Conference are also supported by Pia Tikka’s 5-year team grant “Cinematic minds behind-the-scenes: A neurophenomenological window to filmmaker’s enactive cuing of expectations” (PRG2109) awarded by the Estonian Research Council (2024-2028).

Baltic Film, Media and Arts School (BFM), an institute with wide-based international education curricula embedded in the interdisciplinary community of Tallinn University. BFM BA, MA and PhD level study programs both in Estonian and English offer tools and skills for working on various positions in film production, TV, new media, communication, choreography, art and music. Its Centre of Excellence in Media Innovation and Digital Culture MEDIT, studies cultural change and innovation processes of digital media and offers a possibility to conduct artistic research in the field of audiovisual arts.

The FilmEU Centre of Excellence FILMIND is building upon the success of the FilmEU_RIT-supported ARCF pilot (2022-2024), which brought together filmmakers and film scholars to explore cognitive neurocinematic methods and embodied cognition. https://filmind.filmeu.eu/

The FilmEU European University is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The FilmEU_RIT Research, Innovation and Transformation project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. FilmEU Ref. 101004047, EPP-EUR-UNIV-2020 | FilmEU_RIT Ref: 101035820, H2020-IBA-SwafS-Support-2-2020 | ERASMUS-EDU-2023-EUR-UNIV Project: 101124314.*

 

References 

  1. Burzynska, A. Z., Finc, K., Taylor, B. K., Knecht, A. M., & Kramer, A. F. (2017). The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 11, 566. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00566
  2. Vuust, P., Heggli, O. A., Friston, K. J., & Kringelbach, M. L. (2022). Music in the brain. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 23(5), 287–305. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-022-00578-5
  3. de Borst, A. W., Valente, G., Jääskeläinen, I. P., & Tikka, P. (2016). Brain-based decoding of mentally imagined film clips and sounds reveals experience-based information patterns in film professionals. Neuroimage, 129, 428-438. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.01.043
  4. Yilmaz, Mehmet Burak; Tikka, Pia (2025). Body in Motion: Cinematographer simulating Viewer simulating Protagonist. Art & Perception [forthcoming].
  5. Tikka, P. (2022). Enactive Authorship: Second-Order Simulation of the Viewer Experience—A Neurocinematic Approach. Projections, 16: 47–66. https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2022.160104
  6. Lotman, E. (2021). Experiential Heuristics In Fiction Film Cinematography. Doctoral dissertation, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia.
  7. Cutting, J.E. (2016) Narrative theory and the dynamics of popular movies. Psychon Bull Rev 23, 1713–1743. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1051-4
  8. Nimik, L. (2025). Film editors as chance-seekers. Media Practice and Education, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/25741136.2025.2549600.
  9. Pearlman, K. (2025). Cutting Rhythms: Creative Film Editing (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003619604
  10. Novack, D. W. (2024). Sonic Meaning-Making in Film: An Artistic Inquiry into the Functions of Film Sound. Projections, 18(3), 41-66. Retrieved Dec 17, 2025, from https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2024.180303
  11. Primett, W., Mukhina, K., Burak Yilmaz, M., Rietdijk, W., & Tikka, P. (2025). Kinaesthetic empathy through the lens of the cinematographer: physiological and phenomenological alignments in the act of creation. Frontiers in neuroscience, 19, 1613485. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2025.1613485
  12. Yilmaz, M.B., Rietdijk, W., Primett, W., Mukhina, K., Lotman, E., and Tikka, P. (2025). Handheld in enaction: First-person perspective of professional cinematographers. Projections: the Journal for Movies & Mind [forthcoming].