In his philosophy of ethics and time, Emmanuel Levinas highlighted the tension that exists between the ""ontological adventure"" of immediate experience and the ""ethical adventure"" of redemptive relationships-associations in which absolute responsibility engenders a transcendence of being and self. In an original commingling of philosophy and cinema study, Sam B. Girgus applies Levinas's ethics to a variety of international films. His efforts point to a transnational pattern he terms the ""cinema of redemption"" that portrays the struggle to connect to others in redeeming ways.