We’re pleased to present the films of Nina Danino, including her most recent feature film Jennifer. Ranging from early 16mm works – which combine observational narrative with personal or subjective memory to inscribe and defer the representation of the woman – to her recent studies of the unseen women who dedicate themselves to enclosed monastic lives, Danino seeks to capture the ephemeral aspects of place through the medium of film. Particularly known for their use of the female voice, Danino’s films mix psychoanalysis, art and experimental film with aspects of her cultural and religious background to create elliptical narratives informed by literary texts, memoirs and her own writing.

Programme 1: Close to Home

Bringing together three of Danino’s early 16mm films – related to Gibraltar both as a real place, and as an imagined geography and history – this programme moves from the fading, half-formed fragments of personal memory, through the melancholic collective memory of a history some would seek to forget, to culminate an unnervingly authentic approximation of religious and sexual ecstasy. read more
 
First Memory, 1981, 20 min, Colour, 16mm
Close to Home, 1982-85, 28 min, B/W, 16mm
"Now I am yours", 1992, 32 min, B/W & Colour, 16mm
 
Programme 2: Temenos
 
This programme presents Nina Danino’s first feature film Temenos, which explores the phenomenon of visionary experience by taking the viewer to locations where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared; here Danino films the landscapes that have witnessed these transcendental appearances, imbuing them with a sense of the sacred. Preceded by the recent short Sorelle Povere di Santa Chiara – a photographic portrait in response to the idea of simplicity and poverty, which is the guiding principle of the Poor Clares and their "hidden" life. read more
 
Sorelle Povere di Santa Chiara, 2016, 12 min, B/W, 16mm
Temenos, 1998, 75 min, Colour & B/W, Beta SP

Programme 3: Jennifer

This programme presents Nina Danino’s most recent feature film Jennifer, which unfolds the life of an enclosed monastery over the course of one day creating a portrait of both the interior of the building and of Jennifer, a Carmelite nun. Preceded by the exultant and feverish swoop of Stabat Mater, which combines handheld camerawork with a fragmented recitation of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from Joyce’s Ulysses. Danino will be present for a Q&A following the screening. read more

Stabat Mater, 1990, 8 min, Colour, 16mm
Jennifer, 2015, 72 min, Colour, DCP