Spotlight: Director Mark Cousins (MARCIA SU ROMA) on Cinema, Seeing, and Creativity
About this Spotlight
Spotlight Events feature conversations with high-profile film and television industry professionals who share helpful advice and insights on their career experiences and creative processes. Check out some of our inspiring chats with Patty Jenkins, Ava DuVernay, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Brit Marling, Jason Blum and more.
Sundance Collab has been proud to present 40 DAYS TO LEARN FILM as a way to inspire, enlighten, and reinvigorate our passion for cinema during these unprecedented times. Join us for a culminating event with filmmaker Mark Cousins in conversation with Tabitha Jackson, Director of the Sundance Film Festival. We'll explore Mark's perspective and journey as a storyteller--beginning with his debut feature film, THE FIRST MOVIE; through his groundbreaking 15-hour documentary, THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY; concluding with a discussion on 40 DAYS TO LEARN FILM. Mark will share his thoughts on looking and seeing as an artist, why for him creativity is not about self-expression, and what cinema can teach us in these challenging times.
SpotlightTeam
Mark Cousins
Advisor
Mark Cousins is an Irish-Scottish director and writer. His films – including THE FIRST MOVIE, THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY, WHAT IS THIS FILM CALLED LOVE?, LIFE MAY BE, A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM, ATOMIC, STOCKHOLM MY LOVE and THE EYES OF ORSON WELLES – have premiered in Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, and Venice film festivals and have won the Prix Italia, a Peabody, the Stanley Kubrick Award and other prizes. He has filmed in Iraq, Sarajevo during the siege, Iran, across Asia and in America in Europe. He has honorary doctorates from the Universities of Edinburgh and Stirling.
Mark’s books, including IMAGINING REALITY: THE FABER BOOK OF DOCUMENTARY, THE STORY OF FILM and THE STORY OF LOOKING, have been published around the world.
He is the chair of the Belfast Film Festival, a patron of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and a board member of Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival. His new project, the 14-hour documentary WOMEN MAKE FILM aims to rethink cinema. It is narrated by Jane Fonda, Tilda Swinton, Sharmila Tagore, Kerry Fox, Debra Winger, Adjoa Andoh, and Thandie Newton.
Tabitha Jackson
Moderator
Tabitha Jackson assumed the role of Sundance Film Festival Director in February of 2020. Serving as the Director of the Documentary Film Program at Sundance Institute since 2013, she and her team encouraged the diverse exchange of ideas by artists with a mission to champion the power of artful cinema in the culture and to support a more expansive set of makers and forms. In 2019 she launched and led a new pillar of work at the Institute – Impact, Engagement and Advocacy – with the goal of reasserting the role of the independent artist as a dynamic force for social good.
Prior to joining Sundance she served as Head of Arts and Performance at Channel 4 Television in London, where she supported the independent and alternative voice and sought to find fresh and innovative ways of storytelling, including executive producing Mark Cousins’ cinematic odyssey The Story of Film. She is an award-winning Commissioning Editor, director, producer and writer who believes passionately in the arts as a public good.