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Mark Jenkin
Film is the medium for Mark Jenkin, the filmmaker who has championed celluloid throughout a highly distinctive career.
With his BFI-distributed feature film Bait in 2019 writer-director Mark Jenkin achieved a genuine indie sensation. From seemingly outside of Britain’s traditional filmmaking structures the film emerged to reached a wide audience, despite its ostensibly semi-experimental form. Yet Jenkin had been making films since 2002, ploughing a particular filmmaking furrow based around analogue techniques, home-made solutions, and adherence to his own DIY filmmaking manifesto, Silent Landscape Dancing Grain 13. (One of the rules being to break one of the preceding rules.)
Here we present a selection of Jenkin’s other works in order to highlight an under-explored filmmaking journey. Focusing on his longer shorts and mid-length works, we include Bronco’s House (2015), the 44-minute film that brought Jenkin to the attention of critical champions such as Mark Kermode, and which has many thematic resonances with Bait. His other mid-length work Enough to Fill An Eggcup (2016) can in some ways be seen as a summation of his various earlier Cornish landscape shorts. While David Bowie Is Dead (2018) finds Jenkin in a completely different, urban rhythm – an amphetamine rush through Patrick Keiller-esque psychogeography. Finally, the BFI Network-funded Hard, Cracked the Wind (2019) shows Jenkin still developing his short-form techniques even after the production of Bait; channelling both MR James and John Carpenter for this eerily atmospheric genre piece.
Enys MenEnys Men
Horror202291 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
Mark Jenkin follows Bait with this chilling, endlessly mysterious folk horror tale, beautifully shot on grainy 16mm.
BaitBait
Drama201989 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
Simmering tensions between locals and newcomers in a modern-day Cornish fishing village reach boiling point in this hugely acclaimed British independent film.
Bronco's HouseBronco's House
Animation & Artists Moving Image201544 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
A young man strives to provide a home for his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn child, in Mark Jenkin's mid-length precursor to Bait.
Hard, Cracked the WindHard, Cracked the Wind
Horror201917 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
A haunting with words is the lure between life and death for a young Cornish poet.
The Essential CornishmanThe Essential Cornishman
Short documentary20166 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
Mark Jenkin’s experimental homage to the spontaneous prose of The Beats, from the mythical Cornish west.
Enough to Fill Up an EggcupEnough to Fill Up an Eggcup
Animation & Artists Moving Image201636 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
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 from Mark Jenkin (Bait).
David Bowie Is DeadDavid Bowie Is Dead
Animation & Artists Moving Image201817 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
Mark Jenkin (Bait) undertakes a stream-of-consciousness road trip through London in the turblent wake of David Bowie's death.
29 Hour Long Birthday29 Hour Long Birthday
Short documentary20226 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
From the Hudson River to the summer homes of Long Island, the filmmaker looks back on a movie-inspired trip to New York.
Dear MarianneDear Marianne
Short documentary20166 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
A Cornishman visiting the Irish coast sends postcards home in Mark Jenkin’s short travelogue.
The Road to ZennorThe Road to Zennor
Short documentary20172 minsDirector: Mark Jenkin
Winner of Best Experimental Film at the 2017 London Short Film Festival, this poetic travelogue evokes the long shadows and peaceful hum of a late Cornish autumn.
Mark Jenkin's The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men
Discover more about Mark Jenkin's influences in our Subcription collection.