Maria
Synopsis
In this experimental film, Maria Callas is transfigured in recordings of different performances - Norma, Tosca and Medea. The film is composed as an audio-visual ICONOSTASIS (a wall of icons) of different archive formats and newly shot footage.
MARIA is a transcendent experimental vision of an icon, artist and woman.
Details
- Year
- 2023
- Type of project
- Features
- Running time
- 80 min
- Format
- 16mm conformed to Digital (different original archive formats)
- Director
-
Nina Danino
- Editor
- Nina Danino; Online Editor: Edd Maggs
- Director of Photography
- Nina Danino;Specialist Camera: James Holcombe
- Sound
- Stefan Smith; Sound Recording and Pre Mix: James Bulley; Additional Sound Engineering: Ian Tompson
- Composer
- Music Consultant: Diane Hayes
- Principal cast
- Maria Callas
- Archive Consultant
- Kate Griffiths
Genre
Categories
Production Status
Production Company
Temporal Films
Sales Company
Distribution and Bookings
LUXCharlotte Procter, Collection and Archive Director
Waterlow Park Centre
Dartmouth Park Hill
London
N19 5JF
Page updates
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See also
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Venice "Sadness rises in me like the sea" WINTER LIGHT
Director: Nina Danino
Year: 2026
“You are a sky of autumn, pale and rose; But sadness in me rises like the sea" The Eyes of Beauty, Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil In Greenwich Park, London two lovers stroll and talk about love, their relationship and the making of a film in Venice. The Venice film is shot on 16mm. Venice at dawn is empty and a protagonist sits at the empty San Marco Piazza, is seen walking in a detached manner from the grand sights and facades and interiors of Palazzos into the backstreets. In gilded interiors and painted ceilings, as the winter afternoon light weakens in a soporific atmosphere, she lays in dark interiors with frescoes of Antiquity. Like the Risen, at twilight she walks the alleyways and into the Like the Risen, at twilight she walks the alleyways and into the dark to meet the Devil at dawn. Featuring the actor Pietro Fanelli – the Devil makes a fleeting but impactful appearance, the protagonist offers herself to his gaze and touch. The film follows a path via the remnants of Romanticism and Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil in search of beauty, opulence, exotic pleasure and lovers, exemplified by Venice.
Solitude
Director: Nina Danino
Year: 2022
...then on the shore of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink." 1818 John Keats Readings from the poets Byron, Keats, Brontë, Tennyson, Coleridge and songs from the dark repertoire of the singer Nico with portraits from the films of Philippe Garrel circa 1975 and Andy Warhol's The Chelsea Girls and swirling electronic music from Ash Ra Tempel and new electric guitar sound track by James Creed and tracks to the songs by Graham Dowdall aka Gagarin and ex of The Faction, with new images of the River Thames put together in an elegy on iconicity, vocality, finitude and solitude. Supported by Arts Council England
I Die of Sadness Crying for You
Director: Nina Danino
Year: 2019
A personal essay film centred on copla - a form of Spanish lyrical song which powerfully communicates emotions of sorrow and the profound sadness of woman. The film combines filmmaker Nina Danino's interest in the female voice with archive and newly filmed performances. The film sets out to look for copla and the women and singers of copla and on her own memory and experience of it. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere