Greek Tribute to Mark Cousins
Along with Jon Bang Carlsen the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival pays a tribute to Mark Cousins, also an original filmmaker, loved by this site, a man who knows his film history (buy the 930 minutes long dvd compilation he made with wonderful clips commented by Cousins! He is by the way now making one on documentaries, 3 hours it should be), he is/has been an excellent film critic AND is a film director – in Thessaloniki ”A Story of Children and Film”, ”Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise”, ”I am Belfast” and ”The First Movie”.
Today a press conference was held with Cousins, here is a quote, bur read it all, clever words from the scotsman born in Belfast:
Asked by the audience about his relationship with children, the director referred to his childhood, noting that he grew up with his twin brother in Belfast, in a loving Protestant family. Although he did not want to have children, he finds something charming about them. “When children want something, they usually want it right now. Even in places where the reality is tragic, children recover almost in no time. While growing up, I saw people in their 20s getting dressed in suits, becoming dull, hiding their desires and feelings. In English we say that we don’t stop playing because we grow up, but we grow up because we stop playing. I wanted to hold on to this playful spirit. This feeling of magic is easy to lose and when you start facing life scared and wary, you lose a lot out of it”, Mark Cousins stressed. And to prove his words, he put on a gorilla suit glove, which he always keeps with him, as he said, as his nephew encouraged him to put it on as a game each time he presents his film A Story of Children and Film.
http://tdf.filmfestival.gr/default.aspx?lang=en-US&page=1323&newsid=224
