The BFI is e giving a new home to four short films by Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin, writer/director of 2019’s BAFTA Award-winning hit feature BAIT. As the first anniversary of the UK cinema release of BAIT approaches on 30 August, three films made before it and one made since, will be welcomed on to BFI Player’s Subscription service from 3 August 2020. The shorts will join BAIT – which has remained in BFI Player’s weekly Top 10 most popular films since its digital release in January 2020 – to create the Mark Jenkin collection.
Mark Jenkin is a multi-award winning filmmaker, whose work, using traditional filmmaking techniques, is highly distinctive. His favourite camera is a 1976 hand-cranked Bolex, he uses mainly black and white film stock and processes all his own footage, and has experimented with home-made developing solutions that contain coffee or Vitamin C powder to great effect. A believer in making films about ‘what you know’ and beginning with a simple plot or premise, much of his work reveals his Cornish heritage and proud passion for his roots and how he finds beauty in imperfection.
Related: Film Review – Bait (2019)
HARD, CRACKED THE WIND (2019, 17 mins, Early Day Films)
A nib scratching, wind whistling, leaf rustling, sea foam spraying ghost story.
Directed by Mark Jenkin, written by Adrian Bailey, produced by Kate Byers, Denzil Monk & Linn Waite. This production was supported by BFI Network Southwest
DAVID BOWIE IS DEAD (2018, 17 mins, The Independent Film Unit)
“A psychogeographical reminisce and celluloidic memory drift of the highest order” Andrew Kötting
Past and present journeys through London in the days following David Bowie’s death.
ENOUGH TO FILL UP AN EGGCUP (2016, 36 mins, Golden Tree Productions / The Independent Film Unit)
Transcending a portrait of place, the quiet, eternal rhythms of the small fishing cove Penberth are caught, landed and served up in this stark and gentle handcrafted celluloid poem.
BRONCO’S HOUSE (2015, 44 mins, Bosena)
Bronco, a proud man, strives to fulfil his sense of responsibility to provide a home for him and his pregnant girlfriend, but in their picturesque harbour village in Cornwall affordable property is rare. An experimental narrative shot in 16mm.
Three more of Jenkin’s shorts were included as extras on the BFI’s DVD/Blu-ray release of BAIT:
DEAR MARIANNE (2015, 6 mins): a Cornishman’s travels in Ireland, through Wexford, Waterford and Cork in search of the familiar
THE ESSENTIAL CORNISHMAN (2015, 6 mins): an homage to the spontaneous prose of The Beats, from the mythical Cornish west
THE ROAD TO ZENNOR (2016, 2 mins): a poetic travelogue of a familiar journey to the small coastal village near St Ives
At present, Mark Jenkin is writing a new film, since shooting for his next feature, ENYS MEN, produced by Bosena for Film4, has been postponed for a year. GOVENEK OF PAUL is about a fishing boat that mysteriously turns up in the harbour one morning, 30 years after it was at sea with all hands… Mark is currently providing a regular audio diary on the film’s progress for BBC Radio 4’s The Film Programme. Earlier in July he was presented with the Gorsedh Kernow Grand Bard’s Award. He has recently directed two music videos for Flyte.
See @Mark_Jenkin for the latest news.
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