In this diploma thesis, I explore the probability of eternity within visual arts and the question of how the artistic image, despite its limitations, transcends the time in which it was created. The starting point is the relationship between time, mortality, and the image, which the thesis examines through film. Particular attention is given to photography as an image that preserves a moment, and to film as an artistic medium that allows that moment to endure thereon. The trilogy of films that constitutes the practical component of the thesis draws on the philosophical foundations of Eastern European thinkers and filmmakers to explore how an author transcends their own mortality through the trace left behind their artwork. The trilogy therefore does not attempt to resolve the concept of death, but rather explores different ways in which the transcendence of mortality could be conceived through art.
The first film in the trilogy, The Eternal, pays homage to the aesthetics of silent films and approaches eternity through the literal vampiric desire for immortality; the second, Senke ili sitnice, focuses on the trials of eternal and undying love, while Breme connects the questions of eternity through national identity, time and death through the story of five different characters. Through different narrative approaches, the trilogy thus explores eternity as an unattainable state - wherein the artwork searches for it through the poetic image, duration, memory and repetition.
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