About

StoryTANK, the European Think Tank focusing on storytelling

Brainstorming sessions with screenwriters and researchers from the fields of cognitive science, psychiatry, neuroscience, phenomenology, human sciences, mathematics… as well as interviews of storytellers, researchers, screenwriters and script-consultants, all filmed by Les Parasites: this is what StoryTANK is about.

The creation of stories entails fundamental stakes: artistic, of course, but also anthropological, social, political and prospective. The function of stories is to bring communities together through visions, emotions or imaginary shared constructions.

Today, films, series and – globally – the entire body of stories propelled by moving images, have become the engine creating the representations and projections of our societies.
For better, yet sometimes for worse.

For the last twenty-or-so years, the degradation and the worldwide, massive exportation of a certain type of Hollywoodian creations particularly appreciated by the young generations – films made for the box-office that enhance arms, brutality, violence and super heroes – are problematic for the entire planet. Almost as if we were facing a sort of chronic failure of our capacity to dream together, to open other horizons, other models for the new generations.

The fabrication of storytelling combines a variety of motives

That being said, the strength of Europe lies in its own particular features, which are far-too-quickly considered as banal: multiculturalism, secularism, the singularity of real-life individual experiences, the integration of social criticism in individual stories. In Europe since the Enlightenment, the fabrication of storytelling combines a variety of motives, a wealth of nuances and a power of questioning.

Thus, it seems to us that an attempt at redefining “what is a story”, taking in consideration a constructive and open vision on the new methods, becomes a fundamental lever in the manufacture of meaning, and at the same time a humanist tool in a world that is losing its sense of direction. The stake in the making of these stories that can heighten the awareness of non-violence, and the need for contemporary stories that trace all possible diagonals and collective representations that they federate, thus becomes crucial.

This is why we launched the StoryTANK.

We brought together experienced writers of screenplays and fiction, and allowed them a prospective and pragmatic work process with researchers in adjacent fields, like cognitive or social sciences, physiology, mathematics, neuroscience… It’s about cogitating together, in a non-dogmatic, European and humanist perspective, about the function – both physiological and social – of the story using images and sound, keeping in mind the new ways of a generation transformed by the digital revolution.

StoryTANK lies within a middle and long-term perspective, as the final work created (videos on our YouTube channel & podcasts) is destined as much for film professionals, screenwriters and storytellers, as well as for film funds, researchers and spectators of all kinds.