Stabat Mater

Altered states, religious experiences and emotional landscapes. Stabat Mater opens and closes with two sung laments, ‘saetas’ - sacred Spanish songs which express strong religious emotion directed at the suffering of the figure of Christ or the Virgin during the public processions in Holy Week. The ‘saetas’ are accompanied by a breathless torrent of words and phrases, which echo the exultant and feverish swoop of the camera through a Mediterranean landscape. As in other work, Danino (who was born in Gibraltar) deals with Catholic motifs and iconography in this film, as well as with the subjective voice as a way to represent feminine perspective.

Founded in 1966, the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative started life at Better Books, a counter-culture bookshop on Charing Cross Road, where a group led by poet Bob Cobbing and filmmakers Stephen Dwoskin and Jeff Keen met to screen films. Initially inspired by the activities of the New American Cinema Group in New York, the London Co-op grew into a pioneering organisation that incorporated a film workshop, cinema space and distribution office. During its four-decade history, the Co-op played a crucial role in establishing film as an art form in the UK and participated in a vibrant international film scene. This BFI Player collection brings together new scans of films distributed by and/or produced at the London Co-op.