Temenos, 1998

“I thought of history, of all that had happened in those places…The amazing voices – the transcended sexuality in them and in the landscapes – I thought of all the women in wars, losing their sons and men – and I thought of the abuse and oppression of women….and of women simply living on the land and the calls in the spaces, – somehow we fill the earth with our presences and how fleeting that is, nothing but an echo remains”. Barbara Meter

“Temenos is a searingly beautiful invocation of the persistence of place that has the power to inscribe contemporary political and social circumstances with the memory of the past. Like Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Rosellini’s Stromboli and Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves. Temenos is a haunted territory of unmapped histories and emotions. A fierce place that can be as gentle and devastating as a whisper” Helen de Witt , “The Persistence of Spirit”, Luxonline Artists’ Film and Video Collection

Temenos means ‘ritual precinct’, a sacred place, a place apart. Original Film Soundtrack by Sainkho Namtchylak, Shelley Hirsch and Catherine Bott

Photography: David Scott, Nick Gordon Smith
Produced by Nina Danino and James Mackay Basilisk Films
Financed by The British Film Institute, CICV—Centre Pierre Schaeffer, Montbéliard, Belfort, France The London Production Fund, National Lottery, The Arts Council of England

1998 World Premiere: The 52nd Edinburgh International Film Festival
Festival Book of Lists: Voted 1st of 12 Films with Fab Soundtracks
42nd London International Film Festival

1997 Tracks released in States, Shelley Hirsch, Tellus TE-C003/1997
2000 Theatrical Release, London and UK Regional Cinemas
2000 CD Temenos, film soundtrack, Leo Records CDLR320
2004 DVD History of the Avant-Garde series, London: British Film Institute

Nina Danino “Temenos and Other Places” Filmwaves, Issue 5 Summer, pp20-23, 1998