Mark Cousins

Nancy Franklin' was so overwhelmed by the film 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (1945) that she traveled from New York to the Western Isles of Scotland to see the places where it was made and to find out more about the people who made it. This documentary retraces her steps on a subsequent visit. (imdb)

An odyssey through the story of film.

An innovative 'magic realist' documentary set in Iraq. Filmmaker Mark Cousins, who was brought up in a Northern Irish war zone, travels to Goptapa, a Kurdish-Iraqi village of just 700 people on a tributary of the Tigris river, and tries to make a dream film about a place that is normally only portrayed in current affairs programmes. He gives the kids cameras. They make little movies about war, love, a fish that goes to a magical place, and a chicken who debates justice. (imdb)

In his 15-hour epic The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Mark Cousins did something very important: He looked at film history not through the eyes of an academic or a pedant, but through those of a film lover, a romantic poet and a curious traveller. His passions, feelings and thoughts were inextricably linked to what one's perception of history. This made it a film that was both informative and inspiring. In his new movie A Story of Children and Film, Cousins once again starts from the personal.

The Irish director and film critic explores the transience of in-between states in his take on The Oar & the Winnowing Fan.

Out of his visit to the island of Sardinia in 1921, D.H. Lawrence wrote a travel book called Sea and Sardinia that described the land and its people's timeless essence. Some 90-plus years later, director Mark Cousins goes to the island to understand the place and celebrated author. But instead of using the written word, Cousins relies on images. (sundance.org)

A visual, poetic depiction of Belfast and its citizens, told with love and passion of someone, who has left the city many years ago but is still fascinated by it. Themes brought up in the film range from the landscapes surrounding the city, its changing architecture and social structure to the political and personal repercussions of the Northern Irish conflict. (imdb)

Using only archive film and a new musical score by the band Mogwai, Atomic shows us an impressionistic kaleidoscope of our nuclear times: protest marches, Cold War sabre rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima, but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how X Rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. The nuclear age has been a nightmare, but dreamlike too. (hopscotchfilms.co.uk)

It's an exploration of grief, identity and the power of architecture and urbanism to shape lives, and a celebration of the power of walking and looking to make us all feel just a little bit better. (imdb)

Mark Cousins dives deep into the visual world of legendary director and actor Orson Welles to reveal a portrait of the artist as he's never been seen before.

A documentary that spans 13 decades and five continents to give a guided tour of the art and craft of movies as told by female filmmakers. (imdb)

Examining the most powerful movie images of the last decade, filmmaker Mark Cousins updates his classic The Story of Film with A New Generation. Spanning from 2010 to 2021, including the recent pandemic, Cousins spins an epic and hopeful tale of cinematic innovation from around the globe as he helps to uncover new ways of seeing and being in our eclectic and voluminous digital age. (dogwoofsales.com)

The Story of Looking sees Mark Cousins prepare for surgery to restore his vision. Cousins explores the role that visual experience plays in our individual and collective lives. In a deeply personal meditation on the power of looking in his own life, he guides us through the riches of the visible world, a kaleidoscope of extraordinary imagery across cultures and eras. At a time when we are more assailed by images than ever, he reveals how looking makes us who we are, lying at the heart of human e

An off-beat grand tour that will take in landmarks and people connected to the producer's life and films. (imdb)

Depicts the ascent of fascism in Italy, and its fallout across 1930s Europe. (imdb)

The painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, one of the most important women in British modern art, was a highly inspiring figure whose work was deeply affected by a pivotal event in her life. In May 1949, this leading representative of the St. Ives group of modernist artists climbed to the top of the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland, an experience that would transform her way of seeing the world. She spent the rest of her life capturing its shapes and colours, its very essence. (FILMAFFINITY)