Scotland-based filmmaker Mark Cousins has revealed further details of his epic new 16-hour “mega-project” The Story Of Documentary Film, which is being made through John Archer’s Hopscotch Films.
As its title suggests, film will chronicle the entire history of the documentary form. This will be Cousins’ third major documentary on cinema history following The Story Of Film: An Odyssey (2011) and Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema (2018).
“My central idea here is that documentary isn’t a genre of cinema. It’s not like the musical or the road movie - it is half of cinema,” says Cousins. “Half of films ever made have been non-fiction films.”
The Story Of Documentary Film will take a broadly chronological approach. Cousins has already been shooting parts of the project in Japan, Brazil, Bosnia, the US, Germany and the UK.
“It is really trying to do what I’ve done with some of my previous histories of cinema, which is to challenge the canon, particularly from a more international perspective.”
Cousins is looking at everything from “the innovative Indian docs of the 70s” to the Japanese documentary tradition. It will cover filmmakers ranging from Laura Poitras, Michael Moore and Asif Kapadia to Humphrey Jennings, Alberto Cavalcanti, Jean Rouch and Robert Flaherty.
Cousins explains working with producer Archer, with no broadcaster or streamer partner, gives him complete creative control.
“The good thing when you’re not a commissioned project is that you’ve got full creative liberty,” he says. “John and I have got a business model where you keep the production costs down as much as possible. That means you don’t have to go cap in hand to people. We are doing it so far without any support.”
The director, who has already cut give hours of the film, is mulling over whether he parts of the project might be made available for a major festival in 2025 - or whether he will instead wait until the entire film is complete.
“We’ll see what partners we find and what enthusiasm we find. I don’t mind either way.”
Edinburgh’s ‘Glimpse’
Cousins’ most recent feature documentary A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, about the life and work of visionary Scottish artist Wilhelmina [Willie] Barns-Graham, won the Crystal Globe, the top prize of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, last month.
It is now making its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival this week.
International sales on the title are handled by Reservoir Docs. Conic is releasing the film in UK cinemas in October and a further deal has also been confirmed with Against Gravity for a release in Poland in the spring of 2025.
A Sudden Glimpse was produced by Mary Bell and Adam Dawtrey of Bofa Productions. It is executive produced by Mark Thomas, and has readings from Tilda Swinton. Pitched at Sheffield DocFest MeetMarket 2022, it was made with the support of Screen Scotland.
“[A Sudden Glimpse] seemed like the sort of the thing the market wouldn’t support on its own and that is where you need the public money,” says Cousins of receiving funding from Screen Scotland. “We try to use the public money that is sometimes available to us wisely and cautiously.”
Cousins is in talks with Conic about holding special screenings of the documentary in “places that really mattered to Willie like St Andrews and St Ives.”
As the documentary reveals, Barns-Graham, who was born and raised in St Andrews and became a key member of the St Ives group of modernist artists, had a moment of artistic epiphany while climbing the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland in the summer of 1949. Glaciologists are expected to attend some of the film’s screenings. Cousins also hopes for the doc to screen widely in the UK’s community cinemas as well as in more mainstream venues.
A former EIFF director himself, Cousins welcomes the makeover that the festival has been given following its well-chronicled financial problems.
“Festivals can’t rest on their laurels. They need to be as good as the imaginations of the people running them. Here, we have [producer] Andrew Macdonald as chair and [former Picturehouse exec] Paul Ridd as director,” says Cousins. “Both have real imaginations and a real interest in audience engagement. Their big thing is to interweave more, and connect more, with the rest of the Edinburgh Fringe. That is a really interesting idea.”
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