Toward a Geological Cinema: Samuel M. Delgado and Helena Girón's Filmic Trajectory

Following the filmic trajectory of collaborative duo Samuel M. Delgado and Helena Girón, this article seeks to expand on what could be described as a geological cinema as something that is distinct from, but not wholly other to, landscape film. Centered around the Canary Islands, Delgado and Girón's films respond more to seismic conditions and geological formations than they do anthropocentric tendencies. Influenced by the volcanic writings of seventeenth-century Jesuit Priest Athanasius Kircher, Delgado and Girón delve deep into earth's interiority, positioning cinema as a telluric medium. At stake is a balancing of terminological differences between land, landscape, and geology. Always in relation to the films themselves, this article attempts to parse out these differences using Walter Benjamin's short essay "In the Sun" as a pivotal counterweight to Kircher's subterraneous theories.