Reservoir Docs Nabs Mark Cousins’ ‘A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things’

Paris-based Reservoir Docs has acquired worldwide gross sales rights excluding Italy to “A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things,” a theatrical documentary by Scottish-Irish director Mark Cousins, that includes the voice of Tilda Swinton.

The movie, described by the producers as “visually ravishing,” explores the artwork of the twentieth century Scottish painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.

Swinton will voice the artist’s innermost ideas, studying from her personal diaries and notebooks, which have by no means earlier than been made public.

The movie is in late post-production for launch in 2024. It is produced by Mary Bell and Adam Dawtrey for BofA Productions, and co-funded by the National Lottery through Screen Scotland, with the assist of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust. I Wonder Pictures has acquired Italian rights from the producers.

“A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things” is the story of an uncommon inventive mind, and a powerful lifelong obsession. One day in May 1949, Barns-Graham, then 36 years outdated and an rising determine within the modernist St. Ives group of artists, climbed the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland. She skilled an aesthetic and non secular epiphany which rewired her mind and reworked her artwork. She spent the remainder of her life portray the glacier. Through a cinematic immersion into her artwork and life, the movie explores themes of gender, neurodiversity, local weather change, and the character of creativity from youth to outdated age.

Born in 1912, Barns-Graham died in 2004, creating vivid and dynamic new artworks proper to the very finish of her life.

Cousins stated: “At school I was passionate about both art and maths. My heroes were visual people who seemed to see geometry and engineering in their work – Orson Welles, Paul Cezanne, etc. In the early 90s I discovered another one of that tribe, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, whose paintings analyzed glaciers like Cezanne’s analyzed mountains. Decades later, at the Barns-Graham Trust, I discovered how prolific she was, how unstoppable, and fell in love with her work in a new way. Her visual thinking, her wanderlust and her dynamism excited me. Add in her synaesthesia and the near disappearance of the Alpine glaciers and you’ve got a subject that’s perfect for cinema. I had to make this film. Barns-Graham’s work feels very contemporary to me.”

Dawtrey stated: “Mark is a phenomenon, without doubt the most prolifically successful U.K.-based filmmaker of the past decade, whose work has been lauded at more major festivals than any other, and sold extensively worldwide. All of this by staying true to his own unique artistic vision – just as Willie did with her paintings. That’s why they are an ideal match. We are delighted to work with Reservoir Docs to bring this perfect marriage to audiences around the world.”

This is the fifth collaboration between Cousins and BofA, following “A Story of Children and Film” (2013), “Stockholm My Love” (2016), “The Eyes of Orson Welles” (2018) and “The Story of Looking” (2021).

Anaïs Clanet of Reservoir Docs negotiated the worldwide gross sales take care of BofA. Clanet will launch pre-sales at IDFA, after assembly the producers in Amsterdam two years in the past, and pursuing the mission ever since.

She stated: “Creation, cinema and quality, this is really what attracted us to the project almost two years ago now and I couldn’t be happier to share the film around the world. Mark is a wonderful filmmaker who has a beautiful insight into Wilhelmina’s creativity. It’s a film about the inventive and unusual creative process from an extraordinary artist who deserves to be more widely recognized. Mark has created a one-of-a-kind project that we can’t wait to sell worldwide.”

The movie is edited by Timo Langer, with an authentic rating by Glasgow-based composer Linda Buckley, and animations by Danny Carr. Executive producer is Mark Thomas on behalf of Screen Scotland. Rob Airey of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust, primarily based in Edinburgh, acted as advisor.

In November 2022, Cousins staged a four-screen set up at Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh about Barns-Graham’s encounter with the Grindelwald glacier, titled “Like a Huge Scotland.” Extracts from this set up additionally characteristic in “A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things.” The intention is that the 2 works might tour globally collectively in appropriate multi-arts venues, alongside exhibitions of Barns-Graham’s work.

Other latest movies by Cousins embody “My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock,” “The March on Rome,” “The Story of Film: A New Generation” and “Women Make Film.” In 2020 he obtained the European Film Academy’s inaugural Innovation Award, and in 2022 he was given the Outstanding Contribution to Cinema Medal on the Telluride Film Festival.

In 2023, he obtained the Persistence of Vision Award from the San Francisco Film Festival; the Maverick Award on the Dublin Intl Film Festival; the Outstanding Contribution to Film and Culture Award from the Ismailia Film Festival in Egypt; and the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award from the Sarajevo Film Festival in recognition of his excellent contribution to the artwork of movie.