Filming Women’s Work as Prayer in the Monastery in Jennifer and Sorelle Povere

Keynote Essay: In comparing two films, Jennifer (2015) and Sorelle Povere di Santa Chiara (2016), I will explore the relationship between theory and practice in each. Both films foreground filming itself as a way of collaborating with two women’s religious communities. Jennifer was filmed within the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Ronda, Spain and Sorelle Povere di Santa Chiara was filmed with the enclosed community of Clarissians in San Marino who follow a different charism and were founded in a different history. The films are portraits, Jennifer places emphasis on an individual and Sorelle Povere di Santa Chiarais a 16mm film about the community. I will also touch on how the religious space is constructed in the two films. My recent research is a PhD by Film publication entitled, Experimental Film: Catholic and Feminist Readings of my Films 2010-2017 (Danino, 2017), which examines the intersection of religion, feminist perspectives and experimental film, and is relevant in these two works. This essay will show the relationship of thinking theoretically and in practice, and how I use the subjects’ own terms of reference to produce and read the work from within these terms, i.e. through a Catholic perspective and discourse, as well as referring to perspectives from both outside and within film theory. Thank you to Anglia Ruskin University and Jane Boyer for inviting me to Theorem 2018, and for her support and for the transcription of the Q&A session from the symposium. I found the questions very stimulating as they expanded the discussion around the work. I have included excerpts of the Q&A at the end of this essay.