ABSTRACT
Looking at cinematic experience in a broader ethical perspective, going beyond the human body as we know it, impliesan ethics whereone sees the other not only in human beings, animals and the environment, but also in cyborgs and machines. Sciencefiction films, however, although seeming to promote screen encounters with the Other in theirmost radical phase—as a non-human—mostly tend to stay within an anthropocentric approach. Still, examples are found of the appearance on-screen of posthuman figures that succeed in presenting a more complex identity. These examples show cinema’s potential for allowing the viewer to have an encounter with alterity, not as a threat to his or her identity but as an opportunity to meet an Other in a way that manages to avoid falling into human-machine distinctions.
