Acts of Compulsion
A programme of works from the Cinenova collection at the intersections of sexuality, health and social action in the 1980’s & 90’s. The four shorts in the programme employ experimental techniques, documentary and performance, offering intimate portrayals of touch, desire, care and resistance. These themes in turn fold into ongoing questions about the work of Cinenova itself: how can we acknowledge our interdependent relationships, particularly as an un-funded volunteer organisation?
Keep Your Laws Off My Body, Catherine Gund & Zoe Leonard, USA, 1990, 13 mins
A Short Film About Us - Ramses Underhill-Smith, UK, 1996, 7 mins
Video 28, Video Vera, UK, 1988, 22 mins
Loss of Heat, Noski Deville, UK, 1994, 20 mins
Duration: 62mins
Members of the Cinenova Working Group will introduce the screening and afterwards invite the audience into discussion about the films, and the work of the organisation.
Cinenova: Cinenova is a volunteer-run organisation preserving and distributing the work of feminist film and video makers. Cinenova was founded in 1991 following the merger of two feminist film and video distributors, Circles and Cinema of Women, each formed in 1979. Cinenova currently distributes over 300 titles that include artists’ moving image, experimental film, narrative feature films, documentary and educational videos made from the 1910’s to the early 2000’s. The thematics in these titles include oppositional histories, post and de-colonial struggles, representation of gender, race, sexuality, and other questions of difference and importantly the relations and alliances between these different struggles.
The Cinenova Working Group, founded in 2010, oversees the ongoing work of preservation and distribution, as well as special projects that seek to question the conditions of the organisation.