Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Part 1) Episodes 5-7 (three hours) in person: Mark Cousins, John Archer, Joslyn Barnes (world premiere of the complete series)

 

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Scotland/GB 2026). Agnès Varda frames the image in her movie Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (FR 2000).

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Chuck Jones' Cinema, Mountain Village, 4 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

Part 1 C/Fri 10AM - Part 2 C/Fri 2:15PM - Part 3 MV/Sat 8:30AM - Part 4 M/Mon 9AM Q&A

38 The Story of Documentary Film

Jason Silverman: "Mark Cousins, our most eloquent and prolific cinephile, has directed some 60+ hours of documentaries. His latest Herculean effort, a 16-hour film, exists in a class by itself, an encyclopedic yet poetic summary-analysis-celebration of non-fiction film that travels the globe and spans 130 years, from pre-Lumière experiments to today. He shares exquisite clips of city symphonies, ethnographic treasures, Fascist propaganda and personal essays in an endless, continually fascinating stream (the film would be a thrill to watch even as a silent reel). His narration alternates between astounding factoids, provocative musings, political insights and odd confluences (the film starts with shots of elephants, taken over the course of 100+ years). Cousins has gifted us more than the story of documentary: it’s a story of big ideas, of truth and truthiness, of history unfolding before our very eyes. Watching it, in part or in whole, will rewire you." –JS (Scotland/U.K., 2026, 960m, shown in four parts) In person: Mark Cousins, John Archer, Joslyn Barnes

AA: The second session of Mark Cousins' The Story of Documentary Film takes us the 1960s Eastern Europe, including discoveries from Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and East Germany, with a case study of Heynowski and Scheumann and Der lachende Mann, the astounding interview of the mercenary and former Nazi known as "Congo Müller". Müller also evokes the issue of staging actual atrocities for movie exploitation in the mondo movies of Gualtiero Jacopetti. The insinuations were never confirmed, but watching Müller we know he would have been capable of anything. Cousins also highlights Piloten im Pyjama, interviews with US prisoners of war in a Vietnamese prison and reminds us of the possibility of torture in the context.

The global phenomenon of the cinema of liberation is covered with classics such as La hora de los hornos but also discoveries from Egypt and Algeria and the cinema of Africa. Ireland is not forgotten. Cousins discusses Peter Lennon's Rocky Road to Dublin, de facto banned in Ireland for 30 years. Feminist discoveries include Krystyna Gryczełowska's The 24 Hours of Jadwiga L., preceding the insights in Jeanne Dielman. Cuban revolutionary cinema is on the agenda.

Iran enters the picture in classics by Forough Farrkokhzad (The House is Black) and Kamran Shirdel (The Night It Rained), which leads us to the phenomenon of mockumentary and David Holzman's Diary. Further down on the road we reach Andy Warhol's Sleep, for Cousins "the ultimate 1960's film".

Chapter Six brings us to the Seventies. Ecological awareness is growing, and the Japanese Minamata disaster becomes a topic for seminal documentaries both about the disaster and the magnificent protest action movements demanding justice for the victims. Cousins' discussion of the entire Japanese protest movie phenomenon is engrossing. Feminist awareness is on the rise, evoked in movies such as Growing Up Female. Chantal Akerman becomes a major documentary film-maker (News from Home). Želimir Žilnik of the Yugoslavian Black Wave makes a classic study about unemployment (Nezaposleni ljudi). In Egypt, documentaries of social realism are on the rise (Ateyyat El Abnoudy: House of Mud). Likewise in Columbia (Marta Rodriguez: Chircales).

The giant Frederic Wiseman continues his work in Welfare. Barbara Kopple's Harlan County, USA, belongs to a great tradition including Cavalcanti's Coal Face. Ciro Durán's Gamín exposes the condition of street children in Colombia. 

Not forgotten is the subject of football in the movies. The intimacy of diary movies is represented by Ed Pincus Diaries. Music documentaries grow into a major subgenre. The playfulness of the film essay is represented by F for Fake and Hussain Shariffe's The Dislocation of Amber. Poetry can be combined with naturalism, for example in Abdel Rahman Al Abnoudy's The Sad Song  of Touha.

Sarah Maldoror and Patricio Guzman (La batalla de Chile I-III) bring a powerful personal approach to accounts of historical turbulence. The Palestinian resistance and liberation fight are covered in films essential also as documentation in circumstances where all testimonies are in danger of being erased. The rights of the First Nations are covered in Australian films of social commitment.

China is almost impregnable. Michelangelo Antonioni in Chung Kuo Cina faces the impossibility but does what he can by focusing on the dignity of the people. "You can show people's faces but not their hearts". Masks hide, masks reveal.

In India, Ritwik Ghatak belongs also to the masters of the documentary. Cousins's montage of Indian documentary films of the 1970s is fascinating and forces me to admit yet again how little I know.

Chris Marker in his grand essay movie Le Fond de l'air est rouge is in puzzlement about the legacy of the Sixties. A refrain in the series is Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames. It is always a question of perspective. Sometimes you need to get closer. Sometimes you need to get the biggest perspective.

Bouleversant. Passionnant. To be continued.