Moving Image

Exploring Identity and Fiction

Films and moving-image works exploring identity, fiction, performance and everyday life through documentary, cinematic and experimental approaches.

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2025, UK / Italy Moving image, 14:32 min Moving Image

Better a Fascist Than a Faggot – 2025

Autobiographical moving image exploring masculinity, belonging and the seduction of far-right ideology

Better a Fascist Than a Faggot follows Dino Desica, a queer teenager from Naples who joins a neo-fascist youth group in Rome while attempting to escape discrimination connected to his southern Italian origins and sexuality. Blurring autobiography and fiction, the work explores belonging, masculinity and the seduction of political identity. Set within Santiago Calatrava’s unfinished Vela di Calatrava, Dino attempts to construct a version of himself that might finally be accepted. Credits Norman Mine: writing, direction, cinematography, editing Dino Desica: performance Lottie Loupoulet: soundtrack · Viktor Back: colour Supported by Arts Council England, DYCP Selected screenings The Arzner Cinema, London, followed by a Q&A with Frieze Studios Creative Director Matthew McLean. Athens International Film + Video Festival, Athens, 2025 Bar.lina, Rome, 2025

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2021, UK Moving image Moving Image

Dino Desica and the Rhinoplastic Procedure – 2021

Moving image work using a surgical procedure to blur documentary reality and constructed fiction during COVID-19

Dino Desica and the Rhinoplastic Procedure was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, using Norman Mine’s real rhinoplasty procedure as material for constructing a fictional situation around Dino Desica. Shot on a mobile phone, the work moves between documentary observation and fiction. Unlike a costume or rehearsed role, the physical transformation remains after the performance ends, blurring the boundary between lived experience and the construction of the character. The work explores self-image and the unstable relationship between the person in front of the camera and the image being created. Concept, camera and editing: Norman Mine Performance: Dino Desica Year: 2021 Shot on: Mobile phone

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2014, Santa Marinella, Italy Video, 4 min Moving Image

Brothers, Nostalgic Object – 2015

An observational video exploring childhood, power and the temporary meaning we attach to ordinary objects

Brothers, Nostalgic Object observes brothers Matteo and Arturo playing by the sea in Santa Marinella, near Rome. At the centre of their interaction is a simple piece of wood found by the water. Through play, negotiation and shifting power between the brothers, the discarded object temporarily acquires value, becoming something to possess, exchange and compete over before eventually drifting back to sea. Working through observation rather than direction, the work explores how an ordinary object can become charged with meaning through attention, imagination and relationship. Camera and editing: Norman Mine Featuring: Matteo and Arturo Location: Santa Marinella, Rome, Italy Year: 2014 Duration: 4 min

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2018 Moving image, 13:30 min Moving Image

The Rise of Dino Desica – 2018

Introducing Dino Desica: artistic ambition, failure and everyday life as performance

The Rise of Dino Desica marks Dino Desica’s first appearance within Norman Mine’s practice. Developed over four years, it follows Dino through casting calls, temporary jobs and repeated Jobcentre visits as he tries to justify his ambition to become an artist and performer. Drawing on Italian Neorealism, the work places artistic ambition within everyday realities of work, money and uncertainty. Recorded largely on a mobile phone, candid encounters sit alongside constructed situations, blurring documentary observation and performance. Rather than presenting Dino as a completed character, the work captures his gradual emergence, with failure, repetition and economic instability becoming part of his construction. Concept, camera and editing: Norman Mine Performance: Dino Desica Year: 2018 Duration: 13 min 30 sec Shot on: Mobile phone Selected screening: Tenderpixel Gallery, London, 2018

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2014, Rome, Italy Two-channel video, 3:52 min Moving Image

Mamma – 2014

A mother and adult son negotiate care, independence and separation through an ordinary domestic argument

Mamma records a domestic conversation between Norman Mine and his mother while he prepares to return to London. As she irons, repeated reminders about luggage, clothes and travel turn maternal care into frustration. Around them, family life continues: the television plays, his brother moves through the room, and his mother keeps ironing. Beneath this ordinary exchange is the recurring experience of departure and a home that empties when her children leave. Spoken in Neapolitan dialect and deliberately presented without subtitles, the work communicates through tone, repetition, gesture and rhythm rather than translation. Camera and editing: Norman Mine Featuring: Norman Mine and his family Location: Italy Year: 2014

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2021, Online, Performance / moving image  Moving Image

Lockdown Performances – 2021

Three performances created during lockdown: Future Optimist, Obsession and Insecure at Night

Lockdown Performances brings together three works created during COVID-19: Future Optimist, Obsession and Insecure at Night. Made within domestic and online spaces, the trilogy uses the camera as a way for Dino Desica to perform and seek connection during isolation. Moving between optimism, obsession, insecurity and loneliness, Dino turns the conditions of lockdown into material. In Insecure at Night, he enters random video-chat platforms searching for conversation and intimacy, encountering strangers with very different expectations. The trilogy explores the screen itself as a space for performance and the vulnerability and unpredictability of trying to connect remotely. Concept and video: Norman Mine Performance: Dino Desica Year: 2021 Works: Future Optimist, 5 min | Obsession, 3 min 25 sec | Insecure at Night, 7 min

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