Front Room Film: Loss of Heat, Noski Deville

Cinenova presents The Work We Share: a national public programme of newly digitised films from the Cinenova collection addressing representations of gender, race, sexuality, health and community. The films are captioned by Collective Text, and supported by response commissions from contemporary artists and writers.

Our three day programme hosts the newly digitised film, Loss of Heat by Noski Deville (UK, 1994, 20mins) and presents a new, live performance created in collaboration between Nicola Singh and Noski Deville inspired by the work.

Loss of Heat is an evocative portrayal of queer love that challenges preconceived notions on the ‘reality’ of living with the invisible disability of epilepsy. It is a poetic, immersive interpretation exploring the interplay of the emotional and the physical, across boundaries of sexuality, dependence and desire.

Our Front Room Film programme distributes curated bundles online that include digital access to a film for 24-hours, a contextual introduction to the project and a text in the form of an essay or in conversation. This film will become available to watch on Thursday 28th April 2022 at 6pm and will be live streaming until Friday 29th April 2022, 6pm. If you would like to receive this Front Room Film bundle via email please email Polly Wright, Programme Producer.

ABOUT:

Noski Deville is a cinematographer and film artist, working across film, music and sound. As Workshop Co-ordinator at the London Filmmakers Co-Op in the 1980s she developed her skills on the JK Optical Printer. Deville has over 25 years experience as a cinematographer, which is well known from her award winning work with internationally acclaimed artists including; Isaac Julien, Steve McQueen, Alia Syed, Daria Martin and Jananne Al-Ani. In 2015 she won the Jules Wright Prize for her cinematography in the field of visual arts. An industry recognised Director of Photography and member of the Guild of British Camera Technicians, Deville is also a committed film educator having headed up the Cinematography Department at UCA, Farnham Film School.

The Work We Share gathers a number of films which previously existed in precarious conditions; in some cases, with negatives being lost or distribution film prints being the only copy. This programme intends to acknowledge Cinenova’s interdependency: from organisation, to filmmakers, cultural workers, communities, and individuals. How can we acknowledge our interdependent relationships? How can we recognise our place in a network of communications, relationships and resources, particularly as an un-funded volunteer organisation? What different strains of labour does our work rely on? How do we sustain this work mutually?

Cinenova is a volunteer-run charity 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.

Cinenova offers access to an extensive archive and advice relating to moving image work directed by makers who identify as womxn, transgender, gender non-conforming and gender non–binary. Cinenova is informed by its history as a key resource in the UK independent film distribution sector and internationally.
http://www.cinenova.org