Solitude (2022)
MARIA (2023)
This is the website for film director, filmmaker and artist Nina Danino
SOLITUDE Nina Danino’s film with Nico (Christa Päffgen) (Velvet Underground) as icon, screen and poet was launched on 24th January 2023 at the London Short Film Festival as a special event where Gagarin (Graham Dowdall) performed his new soundtrack. For more details here.
TRAILER Saeta
TRAILER Nico “In Between the Lines”
TRAILER Poem “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be”
Press
MARIA is an experimental film in which Maria Callas is seen in recordings of different performances – Norma, Tosca, Medea and recitals. Callas is transfigured in an audio-visual ICONOSTASIS (a wall of icons) of archive and newly shot footage. 2023 is the Anniversary of Maria Callas.
MARIA will be launched on 14 December 2023, Opera North, Leeds. More information here.
TRAILER MARIA
LUX Interview with Jo Blair THE MYTH AND CULT OF MARIA CALLAS here
Nico in Dark Times : Nina Danino’s Solitude by Laura Staab ALT/KINO
MARIA is a diptych and sister film to SOLITUDE (2022). More information here
“… two exquisite films by Nina Danino, Solitude (2022) and MARIA (2023)… focus respectively on, Nico and Maria Callas” Kieron Corliss Associate Editor, Sight and Sound
Forthcoming and Current Events and Works
Solitude (2022) screening in “Varieties of Cinematic Experience” VCE Film Festival-Symposium , 20-22 Jun New York City, 20-27th June 2025 and Fellow 2025 APRIL Judson Summer Colloquium
“From 20-22 June, the VCE film festival-symposium will bring together religious leaders, educators, filmmakers, writers, artists, and enthusiasts, raising questions about why we seek cinematic experiences, and how these experiences move beyond the screen and become embodied in communal and spiritual ways. Collectively, the group will creatively and critically examine how we receive cinematic works in community and how our environment affects the viewing experience.
We will, of course, be watching a series of excellent films, but we will also be experimenting with the ways that we witness and absorb the films, encouraged through specific interactive engagements and prompts with each film. We aim to appreciate the innate artistry of filmmaking and we also seek to uplift the organic co-creative potential of the audience, excavating ways these experiences can be spiritual, community-forming, and/or generative for further action beyond the time-bound moment of watching.
While the “VCE festival-symposium” will last from Friday to Sunday, our annual Colloquium fellows will continue the themes and meet in a more intimate environment for the following 5 days. There, colloquium fellows will share their own projects (past and future) and gain insights from being together with others from film production, academic, religious, and artistic backgrounds.” 2025 APRIL-Judson Summer Colloquium
Past Events
MARIA, screening + Q&A with Rita Di Santo, Close-Up film centre, London 25 February, 2025
MARIA, screening + Q&A with Holger Lang, Stadtkino, Künstlerhaus, Vienna 11 February, 2025
Album I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty TESTAMENT. Biblical readings and improvised vocals composed by Nina Danino. Electronic instrumentation by Pablo Zapata. Recorded London March-June 2024 Bandcamp Release 31 October 2024.
Revisiting Bare Wires (2024) a mobile phone video revisiting songs from the album Bare Wires recorded July 2024
Sandy Bare Wires (2024) a mobile phone video from the Revisiting Bare Wires video.
SEMINCI 69 International Film Festival, Valladolid, Spain 18-26 October 2024. Jury in the Section Time of History Nina Danino, Tomasz Poborca and Domingo Sánchez-Mesa.
Sorelle Povere di Santa Chiara 2016 16mm, (12 mins), Blue Binding Ribbon, Group, Temporary Gallery, Cologne 12 April- 2 June 2024
Solitude and MARIA, together on 11 June 2024 presented by Inclinations Film Club at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow.
Solitude, screening with the music of GAGARIN + Discussion Panel Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, Richard Witts, Phil Jones, Cultplex, Manchester, 15 June 2024. Information here.. Manchester Wire
Religion&Art Live, Session 3, 4 May 2024, Holy Trinity with All Saints, Prince Consort Rd, London SW7 2BA.
Evensong and Performance with Linda Mary Montano. Further details
MARIA + Q&A, 18 April, 2024, Inces Hall Theatre, Gibraltar
“Light: Look at Your Sun”, Ash Ra Tempel performance to the original track by Nina Danino, St, Stephen Walbrook, London 6 April 2024 Manuel Goettsching official website
Religion&Art Live, Session 2, 6 April 2024, St Stephen Walbrook, Dan Byrne-Smith, Donna Matthews, Antónis Kastellaní, Nina Danino, view performance. View Full event and www.religionandart.org
Performance Event : Nina Danino, Donna Matthews, Antonis Kastellani, Kenishiiwasa, Calliope Michail, Panes 1 series 23 March 2024 Information
View recording of performance of Blood Echoes by Donna Matthews with Antonis Kastellani and Nina Danino
Gesture, conference St. John’s College, Oxford 25-27 January 2024. Session : Gesture as Excess, Presentation Nina Danino “Gesture in Film/Ghost of Love (2021).
Book Review: ‘Mary Magdalene: A Visual History by Diane Aposolos-Cappadona’, Nina Danino, Art + Christianity Journal Issue 116, Winter 2023
MARIA, Launch Screening, Opera North, Leeds, 7.30pm, Thursday 14 December 2023 Information here
Nico Night Part 1: Solitude (2022) Nina Danino + Key (1968) Peter Gidal. In conversation Nina Danino with National Archive curator William Fowler, BFI Southbank, Wednesday 19 July 2023, 18.15 NFT3.
Nico Night Part 2 : The Inner Scar (1972) Philippe Garrel, BFI Southbank, Wednesday 19 July 2023 20.30 NFT 3.
Performance of ‘I’m Dying’ (Yoko Ono), 21 March 2023 in Religion&Art Live. Link here
MARIA on MARIA CALLAS is awarded an Exceptional Award by the Department of Art, Goldsmiths, 2023
GBC TV, The HUB cultural magazine programme, 18 January 2023 . View here