Project Detail

The Story of Film: A New Generation

Synopsis

A decade after THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY, an expansive and influential inquiry into the state of moviemaking in the 20th century, filmmaker Mark Cousins returns with an epic and hopeful tale of cinematic innovation from around the globe. In this film Cousins turns his sharp, meticulously honed gaze on world cinema from 2010 to 2021, using a surprising range of works - including JOKER, FROZEN and CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR - as launchpads to explore recurring themes and emerging motifs, from the evolution of film language, to technology’s role in moviemaking today, to shifting identities in 21st-century world cinema. Touching on everything from PARASITE and THE FAREWELL to BLACK PANTHER and LOVER'S ROCK, Cousins seeks out films, filmmakers and communities under-represented in traditional film histories, with a particular emphasis on Asian and Middle Eastern works, as well as boundary-pushing documentaries and films that see gender in new ways. And as the recent pandemic recedes, Cousins ponders what comes next in the streaming age: how have we changed as cinephiles, and how will moviegoing continue to transform in the digital century, to our collective joy and wonder.
Official Selection Cannes Film Festival 2021 - Cannes Classics - World premiere
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2021 - Create

Details

Year: 2021
Type of film: Features
Running time: 160 min
Format: HD
Director: Mark Cousins
Producer: John Archer
Editor: Timo Langer

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Hopscotch Films

Film City Glasgow
401 Govan Road
Glasgow G51 2QJ

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Sales Company

Dogwoof

Ground Floor
19-23 Ironmonger Row
London EC1V 3QN

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Cinema Has Been My True Love: The Work and Times of Lynda Myles In Mark Cousins’ meditative documentary, Lynda Myles, an influential connoisseur of cinema, reflects on her adventures in the film culture she helped establish. From 1973 to 1980, as the first female director of any festival, Myles transformed the Edinburgh Film Festival into a vibrant, iconoclastic mecca of discovery, championing the work of overlooked auteurs including Hitchcock, Sirk and Sam Fuller. Official selection Telluride Film Festival 2023 - World premiere

A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things

Director: Mark Cousins

Year: 2024

A creative biography of the Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. One of the most important women in British modern art, the painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a highly inspirational figure, whose work was deeply impacted by a pivotal event in her life. In May 1949, this leading representative of the modernist St. Ives group of artists climbed to the top of the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland, an experience which was to transform the way she saw the world. She spent the rest of her life capturing its shapes and colours, indeed its very essence. In his essayistic portrait Cousins delves into complex themes of gender, climate change and creativity, while laying bare the artist’s character and vast imagination so pervasively that he creates the impression we are seeing the world through her eyes. Official Selection Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2024 - World premiere Official Selection Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024

Northern Irish Scottish

The Story of Looking

Director: Mark Cousins

Year: 2021

Facing the threat of losing his sight, award-winning filmmaker Mark Cousins embarks on an intimate odyssey from his bed to explore the central role of looking in his own life, and in the past, present and future of human experience. Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2021 - Closing Film - World premiere

Scottish