[marron]Abstract[/marron]

The moral role that the cinema plays in contemporary life is similar to the role that medieval frescoes, Elizabethan theatre and the manifestations of popular literature of the 70s played before. The phenomenon of empathy that the showing of a film generates is reason enough for a double approach. On one hand through the analysis of recent discoveries in neurophysiology – the so called mirror neurons, and on the other, through the analysis of the structure of fables and myths, present in all great processes of identification. As of this schema, a possible educational function of the cinema is put forward, but not in terms of messages and meanings, but from a process of creativity for which a series of methodological recommendations are suggested. The brief commentary on films in the annex, illustrates the meaning of this method and movement that goes from the processes of psychological identification towards an educational function.