New Landmark Film WOMEN MAKE FILM from Filmmaker Mark Cousins Celebrates Female Directors Around The World | The Fan Carpet Ltd • The Fan Carpet: The RED Carpet for FANS • The Fan Carpet: Fansites Network • The Fan Carpet: Slate • The Fan Carpet: Theatre Spotlight • The Fan Carpet: Arena • The Fan Carpet: International

New Landmark Film WOMEN MAKE FILM from Filmmaker Mark Cousins Celebrates Female Directors Around The World


31 July 2018

TILDA SWINTON TO NARRATE FIRST FOUR HOURS

PRODUCED BY HOPSCOTCH FILMS DOGWOOF TO HANDLE WORLD WIDE SALES

In a joint announcement between Hopscotch Films and Dogwoof, filmmaker and writer Mark Cousins’ next 16-hour film project WOMEN MAKE FILM: A NEW ROAD MOVIE THROUGH CINEMA will preview the first four hours at the 75th Venice Film Festival in September. The episodic film will be 16 hours when completed in Spring 2019 with Venice Festival premiering the first four hours, narrated by Tilda Swinton, who will also executive produce the project.

The epic, four years in the making, still in production, is made up of forty “chapters” to be narrated by Tilda Swinton and other key women in cinema, still to be announced. WOMEN MAKE FILM: A NEW ROAD MOVIE THROUGH CINEMA follows in the footsteps of Mark Cousins’ “The Story of Film: An Odyssey”, to give us a guided tour of the art and craft of the movies. Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and five continents, Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest directors – all of them women

Mark Cousins said “Many films about cinema feature mostly male directors – Women Directing Film challenges that. It tries to change the canon. It’s not about the lives of these great directors, it’s about their work. It is a film school, where all the teachers are female. The intention of this film is to, as Diaghilev and Cocteau said, “astonish us.” To campaign for equality in cinema is compellingly right and part of that campaign must be to celebrate the great women directors from around the world and from every decade, to insert them into the canon where they rightly belong and from which they have been excluded by many film historians, mostly male.”

Tilda Swinton writes “Cinema: the great empathy machine. The ultimate invitation to walk in other people’s shoes, to look through their eyes, follow their thoughts, make their connections. This is the radical project of cinema itself. It transforms - it liberates us as we watch. It makes us fit for evolution.”

Directed and written by Mark Cousins; produced by John Archer for Hopscotch films, Dogwoof will represent WOMEN MAKE FILM for international sales and present the first four hours to buyers in Venice. This latest deal will mark the fourth collaboration between Dogwoof and Mark Cousins, the sales agent also has “The Eyes of Orson Welles” on their current slate and the distribution arm released “A Story of Children and Film” and “The First Movie” to UK audiences.

Ana Vicente, Head of Sales Dogwoof said “We are delighted to work with Mark again, he has such a unique, unmistakable point of view and his film making craft will undoubtedly bring the subject the energy, passion, and soul it deserves. WOMEN MAKE FILM couldn't be more timely; ever since we first learned about the production we recognized its milestone film potential.”

Producer John Archer, who also made “The Story of Film: An Odyssey” with Cousins added “Women directors are only a part of cinema history – there are the great writers, producers, actors, of course, too – but there is much ignorance and blindness about women directing film. Our film will boldly challenge this blindness and I am very excited to be working with Mark and Dogwoof to bring this truly international film to audiences around the world.”

Around the world, women have directed some of the best films ever made. They have dazzled us with their stories, styles, techniques and visions. WOMEN MAKE FILM shows us these visions.

Agnes Varda and Jane Campion will be two of the great directors featured but scores of other filmmakers have used film in interesting ways - too many to mention but filmmakers such as: Safi Faye in Senegal, Forough Farokzhad, Marva Nabili and Mania Akbari in Iran, Sumitra Peries in Sri Lanka, Angola’s Sarah Maldoror, Japan’s Kinuyo Tanaka, Ukraine’s Kira Muratova, Tunisia’s Moufida Tlatli, Bulgaria’s Binka Zhelyazkova, Lois Weber, Maya Deren, Angelina Jolie, Barbara Loden and others in the USA, Pirjo Honkasalo in Finland, Algeria’s Assja Djebar, Czechoslovakia’s Drahomira Viranova and Vera Chytilova, Cecile Tang and Anne Hui from Hong Kong and the UK’s Lynne Ramsay, Sally Potter, Wendy Towe, Antonia Bird and Clio Barnard.

About Mark Cousins
Mark Cousins is a Northern Irish – Scottish filmmaker and writer. His work as a director includes “The Eyes of Orson Welles”, “The Story of Film: An Odyssey”, a 15-hour epic which won a Peabody Award and the Stanley Kubrick Award; “A Story of Children and Film”, a feature documentary which also world premiered in Cannes; “I Am Belfast”, a lyrical essay film about his home town; and his fiction debut “Stockholm My Love”, a grief musical starring and with music by Neneh Cherry. His latest book The Story of Looking was published in the UK last year by Canongate

About Hopscotch Films
Hopscotch Films makes international feature documentaries and drama from Scotland. Recently ACCIDENTAL ANARCHIST (Directors John Archer, Clara Glynn) premiered at CPH:DOX and ARCADIA (Director Paul Wright) at the London Film Festival. As well as THE STORY OF FILM Hopscotch’s producer John Archer’s work with Mark Cousins includes I AM BELFAST and ATOMIC: LIVING IN DREAD AND PROMISE, screened with Mogwai performing the soundtrack live 40 times around the world. Current projects include MAKE ME UP,Scottish artist Rachel Maclean’s technicolored dystopian fiction about being female in a consumer society; HARRY BIRRELL, (director Matt Pinder) one man’s life – and the twentieth century - captured in home movies; and EMINENT MONSTER (director Steven Bennett) a shocking expose of Western government’s love affair with torture.

About Dogwoof
Dogwoof is regarded as the foremost documentary specialist brand in the world and is a stamp of the highest quality content. We sell worldwide, distribute theatrically in the UK and invest in the production of creative feature docs and docu-series.

Founded in 2004, notable releases include theatrical hits such as Blackfish and Dior and I and acclaimed titles such as OSCAR®-nominated Cartel Land and BAFTA-winning The Act of Killing. Dogwoof recently launched a film investment fund - TDog Productions - focusing on the development and production of feature docs and docu-series, gearing up the company towards vertical integration of production, sales and distribution.

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