00:00:00: Here we are still at Kallavi Bari Film Festival and I have the honour to talk to Director Mark Cousins about his recent documentary or its mix between documentary film and series because it has been presented as both, at least at festivals.

00:00:14: The story of documentary film!

00:00:16: Yeah thank you and glad to be here.

00:00:17: yeah i see that's a sort-of big long sixteen hour film broken down into certain eras, you know?

00:00:23: So we look at the nineteen fifties and a bit that here is in nineteen eighties.

00:00:26: And so hopefully it's watchable as to our individual films or binge-able was whole thing.

00:00:31: Your

00:00:31: whole career has been shaped by looking at films in multiple ways both from an academic perspective for personal perspective from historic perspectives.

00:00:40: when did they start their passion for film?

00:00:43: well I've never been on academic.

00:00:44: i have say uh just from childhood I was poor reading but very good imagery.

00:01:07: That's

00:01:12: an interesting point that we are hopefully gonna come back to later.

00:01:15: So you would say the passion for film was always there.

00:01:18: and when did you start putting the film passion into film.

00:01:22: Yeah, I fell in love with cinema at the age of eight and a half until the Swinton and I set up something called The Eight And A Half Foundation for eight-and-a-half year old children who fell in Love With Cinema.

00:01:31: .I did not think i would make films because my father was a motor mechanic.

00:01:35: My mom was a home help but we didn't know anybody connected doing creative jobs.

00:01:39: so I thought it might be a motor mechanical or Something.

00:01:42: But then had some ideas.

00:01:43: when I was twenty two wrote them on a napkin you Know that You Would Find In A Cafe sent Them a British TV station and they commissioned the napkin.

00:01:51: so suddenly I was directing six short fiction films.

00:01:55: Your first big documentary looked at film, like fiction film mostly.

00:02:00: then what did comprise your idea?

00:02:02: to make another part of it Daddy's Documentary?

00:02:05: My first film my first film is a documentary about Gorbachev And one about neo-nazis in holocaust deniers.

00:02:11: So i've made films with lots of subjects.

00:02:14: When I made this story or film The Odyssey that you refer There's a lot of documentary in there.

00:02:19: I just thought, I wanted to talk about the innovative nature of cinema and general... ...I've always been blind.

00:02:26: all films are documentaries in some way.

00:02:29: Jean-Luc Godard said that.

00:02:30: but increasingly what was happening politically is the world countries going more to the far right in a number of countries, it felt time.

00:02:38: To look at documentary itself and ask what?

00:02:41: how has it told?

00:02:42: The history of our times or societies are private lives etc.

00:02:46: so I think i wanted to look more towards reality.

00:02:49: At A Time When The Far Right Is Telling Lies About Reality It's

00:02:53: an interesting perspective.

00:02:55: everything is documentary because you could also say that Everything As Fiction especially if You Look At The Cinematic Or The Film History Of Documentary That Always Has Been with fiction, like some of the most famous documentaries are fiction films.

00:03:08: Like Nanook Of The North is a fiction film but it's always has been seen as documentary.

00:03:12: I think that idea... If i put a camera on your face now even if you were acting still would see light in this room and movement of head.

00:03:20: so basic reality capturing property of a camera was there.

00:03:25: I agree lots of documentary films are manipulated or restaged things.

00:03:30: But Bernardo Bertolucci a controversial figure now.

00:03:34: He said that Last Tango in Paris is a documentary about Marlon Brando's face, so there was always the documentary impulse when our camera has used.

00:03:43: I think

00:03:43: with this huge body of film where to start?

00:03:46: Was it overwhelming?

00:03:47: We've done it mostly chronologically from the eighteen nineties because i felt like people don't know the basic story of documentary.

00:03:55: but very first thing we use is not from eighteen ninety five when we say documentary starts So before the birth of cinema in a way, and it's one second long film directed by Georges Dominique.

00:04:08: And he says J'vous aime?

00:04:09: I love you!

00:04:10: One-second film saying...I LOVE YOU!

00:04:12: You could argue that this is one of the most beautiful simple films ever made but also tells us something about cinema.

00:04:19: Cinema in some ways tries to cherish life.

00:04:22: obviously cinema makes many mistakes and does very bad things But its also on some basic way trying to cherish landscapes, sunsets face cities, etc.

00:04:35: But that's not fiction.

00:05:01: Yes, of course all cinema is personal.

00:05:04: every documentary was made by somebody and you're right we have to ask who's telling the story from where when And why?

00:05:10: That doesn't mean it's fictional It's personal.

00:05:12: there's a big difference I think between fiction and subjectivity.

00:05:15: So

00:05:15: how did you structure it?

00:05:17: and Did you at some point struggle with what to put in and want to take out?

00:05:21: yeah In front me here You use this meter-wide sheet of paper and along The top it says eighteen ninety nineteen tens twenty thirty the decades the side here.

00:05:30: It's country by country, Japan

00:05:32: U.S.,

00:05:33: France Africa.

00:05:34: and I wrote all these names of films in there about a thousand films across this grid-like structure.

00:05:41: And then i thought Here is the basic map that want to explore.

00:05:45: Let us say when we come into the nineteen sixties where they are lot of film like protest Then look back at earlier protest films Look forward later protest films.

00:05:54: So within chronological structure I can circle it bit and hopefully surprise people a little bit because I want people to see the classic documentaries that they've heard of, but also discover other ones that they haven't heard off.

00:06:06: Where there's certain works where you were unsecure if you should take them in or take them out maybe becaus'e are either off-the-boarder documentary and fiction or some other way tricky to deal with?

00:06:18: I

00:06:18: certainly have not taken anything out cause it is tricky to dealing with.

00:06:20: If any thing i was attracted those films.

00:06:23: There're certain Japanese film for example one where an investigator beats up the guy he's interviewing, it is called Emperor's Naked Army matches on.

00:06:31: That's in.

00:06:32: I left out...I haven't dealt with what's called mockumentaries.

00:06:36: you know that they're pretending to be documentaries but their not and i havent' dealt with them.

00:06:39: But im very interested into grey area films where people maybe take a real subject and re-stage it with actors And then have the real people interact with those actors.

00:06:49: There are lots of films like that made from UKto Brazil To many countries Very Interested In the kind of Twilight Zone You could say between the purely observational documentary and the documentary, which is staging things to show something that perhaps we haven't seen.

00:07:04: Did you

00:07:05: set yourself a certain time limit?

00:07:07: Or do see it maybe as a work in progress where you can say like I always might add on or am I putting more chapters...

00:07:13: Yes!

00:07:14: That's possible.

00:07:15: I thought myself let's try make something about fifteen or sixteen hours such if possible.

00:07:20: You could start at Friday evening and binge all weekend And then go to your friends.

00:07:25: are your worker colleagues Monday?

00:07:27: you say, You'll never believe what I did.

00:07:41: enough of documentary or film

00:07:56: for a while, was it hard to stop?

00:08:00: To know like now this work is done because can also be very hard with long-time projects when they're finished.

00:08:06: Yeah that's funny.

00:08:06: you are right.

00:08:07: I know lot people who cant close the project.

00:08:10: It goes on and on People sometimes here writing PhDs And take some ten years Or something...I'm not like that!

00:08:15: I love setting up deadline then meeting it.

00:08:18: For example You notice i was early to meet you This morning..i always liked That so i knew When i had to stop because I've got other projects and other films.

00:08:27: So, I didn't want this to stretch on like mozzarella.

00:08:30: Film

00:08:30: is a history that's continuously being written so it in the progress maybe any histories.

00:08:35: did you then also set yourself a certain limit where say This Is The End point?

00:08:39: And i'm doing everything before that.

00:08:41: Yes as was making this film Covid happened You know...and had time really ask some broader questions about documentary in era of Covid for example..I wanted come up close possible to present day with our films from last year in here, like a beautiful little Irish film for example.

00:08:59: But at the very end of the last ten minutes I ask what's the future look like for cinema?

00:09:04: And there is a Colombian film that starts with an ending and the filmmaker says now it's your turn.

00:09:11: so the very last thing i say after sixteen years to the audience isn't now its your turn you go out make movies show us your life.

00:09:23: four billion cameras on phones in the world.

00:09:27: So this is the most democratic time in the history of documentary

00:09:31: cinema.".

00:09:32: I was more thinking not too much about a number of cameras, but more like people who have access and possibility to actually make films.

00:09:40: because even if you say every phone or most phones has a camera... Not everybody necessarily has a phone.

00:09:47: that's good enough for making film!

00:09:49: And not everyone has the time Of

00:09:54: course not everybody in the world, but it's far better.

00:09:57: Most filmmakers have come from middle-class backgrounds From The Western World.

00:10:01: You know so people for my background working class For example.

00:10:04: It was impossible to them To make films.

00:10:07: So its Far Better Than It Was.

00:10:08: of Course there is still more to do.

00:10:10: The river Is Becoming A Delta And Its Widening and Widing.

00:10:13: But There Is No Point Just Saying Not Everybody Because We Have To Celebrate That With First Time In Cinema History Why?

00:10:22: number of people from all around the world are making films and having them seen.

00:10:26: This is a mostly positive view, right?

00:10:27: You know.

00:10:28: but if you can talk about this small-numbered people without cameras then we forget to make major democratic point that this art form was way more open than it ever.

00:10:45: middle-class perspectives.

00:10:53: How did that influence your work when making this documentary?

00:10:58: Well,

00:10:58: it means the very first bit until the late nineteen forties.

00:11:02: I deal with quite quickly because a lot of films are similar.

00:11:06: you know they were these well meaning Europeans going out to other countries and trying tell stories about those other countries.

00:11:13: but then we get into the nineteen fifties where African directors make movies slows down and I open up to include all these other people.

00:11:23: The way i dealt with it is to summarize the first bit, but then when there were more voices... When It became more democratic!

00:11:29: Then that's when this story enriches.

00:11:32: Did you apply the same approach?

00:11:35: To aspects of male gaze And certain classist perspectives And racist perspectives That go especially into like we mentioned Nanook of the North Which was just strongly influenced by the colonists perspective go with the same approach?

00:11:51: Absolutely.

00:11:52: I mean, i don't know if how much of this you've seen or what are my other work that you have seen but in terms of the male gaze phrase isn't one that I use much anymore certainly In this story of documentary film The person who has a view...the only one filmmaker I used five clips from and it's Atayat Alabnudi the great Egyptian female director.

00:12:12: And so there loads and loads of female filmmakers on this Even even from Germany in nineteen thirties If we think about Germany in the late nineteen thirties, female filmmakers.

00:12:20: One name comes to mind before any other doesn't it?

00:12:23: Leni Riefenstahl.

00:12:24: but I've also got Ella Bergman-Michel who's working at exactly the same time and doing equally interesting work so that the pleasure of challenging, let's say a kind of sexist European-ness history of cinema.

00:12:36: Was it hard to find these works in archives?

00:12:39: No because I've been doing this stuff as you referred earlier for quite a long time.

00:12:45: It means that the archive is very kindly trust me.

00:12:48: so i'll say to The Bulgarian Archive or The Hong Kong Archive Or The Brazilian Archive Please can I see those sort films we're not usually seeing especially always.

00:12:57: for decades have been saying who are your great female filmmakers?

00:13:01: And so it hasn't been difficult, you know?

00:13:03: I think that what's happened is people have realised they can trust me.

00:13:07: If they lend some materials... ...I could get them out in festivals like Karl Mavari and Cannes & Berlinale etc.

00:13:13: Amplify these voices!

00:13:15: Have you seen something that changed your own perspective?

00:13:18: Because i've been doing this a long time- Like I wrote a book on documentary cinema in the mid nineties which was thirty years ago.

00:13:25: So overall history of documentary cinema broadly aware of, but I think for example... Think about a country like Bulgaria.

00:13:33: For example i've been a long-term fan of Binkajaliya's Kova's films so wonderful Bulgarian film called the mosquito problem and other stories And that its mode of storytelling was..I haven't seen anything like it.

00:13:47: The way it shapeshifts becomes different type of film again.

00:13:52: That is exciting!

00:13:53: That is dazzling.

00:13:56: Do you see your work as specifically from a working-class perspective or would say it's universal?

00:14:02: You know, I was brought up in the working class but now moving into festival circuits and staying at nice hotels.

00:14:07: My own sense of world has changed little bit But i'm certainly passionately international And next week go to Armenia To get a lovely prize for my works.

00:14:18: The countries that have asked me for retrospectives give me prizes are Egypt Brazil Portugal Iran.

00:14:24: So I feel radically determined to kind of have a sense of the whole world, particularly at a time when so many countries are increasing their border controls and trying to say nationalities in people's you're special or better than those other people

00:14:40: Are working on something new?

00:14:41: Maybe this story of animation film?

00:14:44: No i'm not good because make lots films that aren't about cinema.

00:14:47: For example The Film When I Won The Best Film Here In Cali Bavaria It Was About A Painter.

00:14:52: The next project is an opera.

00:14:54: I'm writing an opera called the Bath and it's about somebody who's in a cheap seat, In A Cheap Airline dreaming of being on a bath And Dreaming About The World.

00:15:02: If the characters are Cleopatra Jean-Paul Marra and Charlotte Corday French Revolutionaries!

00:15:08: I am

00:15:08: still figuring out how Cleopatras got into the bath.

00:15:10: Yeah we all

00:15:11: know that Marra

00:15:11: Got Into The Bath.

00:15:13: Yeah Well Cleopater apparently so it says she bathed in donkey milk with honey & herbs.

00:15:20: i've always been interested in cleopatra.

00:15:22: Somebody said to me yesterday, who would you most like to have dinner with in the world?

00:15:25: And I said Cleopatra because she was Greek and Egyptian fascinating woman.

00:15:29: Her relationship with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony all these her use of power.

00:15:33: Thank You so much Mark Cazens!

00:15:34: You're

00:15:34: welcome thank you.