UK production outfit Hopscotch Films returned to CPH:DOX Forum with Story of Documentary Film, the latest epic by revered filmmaker Mark Cousins. Following on from their collaborations on The Story of Film: An Odyssey and Women Make Film, this new 16×60-minute series sets out to tell the definitive story of non-fiction cinema—”boldly feminist, jargon-free, and truly global in scope.“
The ambitious project, now in production, is being produced by Hopscotch’s John Archer, who is embarking on his “third epic” together with Cousins. The projected €1.23 million budget is partially secured, with support from Screen Scotland and the UK Tax Credit.
Much like Cousins’ previous work, Story of Documentary Film seeks to challenge familiar tropes and opens new windows onto cinema history. Spanning over 130 years of non-fiction filmmaking, it explores documentaries from all over the world—from Egyptian titles of the 1970s to decades-spanning works from Japan and long-forgotten Bulgarian gems directed by women in the 1960s. In true Cousins fashion, it invites viewers to ask not, “have I seen this?” but “why haven’t I seen this before?”
Thematically, Cousins said on stage that the series revolves around ideas of “revolution, gender, joy, music, childhood, ageing, politics and history.” It will revisit celebrated works such as Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, USA, Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, Asif Kapadia’s Amy, and Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I, while also spotlighting numerous discoveries.
“We want to give a real sense of the documentary’s epic journey through time,” said Cousins at the Forum, noting that the project consults top experts and archivists to provide a comprehensive and contemporary take on the genre.
The project opens, fittingly, with a short Twitter video of an elephant being rescued by a JCB in East India—a poetic nod to the power and immediacy of documentary images in the digital age. “So much has happened over the last 130 years since doc was born—extraordinary things,” said Cousins, referencing events from the building of New York and the luminosity of the Chrysler Building to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, advances in LGBTQ+ rights, and even the voice of Ella Fitzgerald. “Documentary at its best has told us more about our times than anything else,” he tells in his director’s notes.
Stylistically, the series will avoid conventional TV aesthetics in favour of cinematic visuals. Each episode will be rooted in one specific location, spanning six continents—from Paris and Tokyo to Mumbai and São Paulo—offering fresh perspectives on both familiar and lesser-seen places. “People will feel that they are seeing even famous places – like Paris, Tokyo, Mumbai, and so on – in new, revealing ways. An eye opener that hopes to change the international conversation about documentary filmmaking. And influence the content and style of future documentaries,” Cousins further explains.
In Copenhagen, the filmmakers unveiled the aforementioned opening three-minute clip and confirmed their plans for both a major festival launch and wide international broadcast. Currently, the runtime stands at 16 hours, “but I might need another hour,” joked Cousins. Archer added, “This will be finished early 2026. We hope to reach both festival audiences and public broadcasters across the globe.”
Hopscotch Films has steadily built its reputation as a home for filmmaker-driven, passion-fuelled projects. Recent titles include Life and Other Problems, which opened CPH:DOX 2024; Janey, which closed Glasgow Film Festival; Bogancloch, which premiered in Locarno; and Bill Douglas: My Best Friend, which bowed in Venice in 2023. Past hits also include Loch Ness: They Created a Monster (Cannes Docs/Sitges), Tish(Sheffield), My Old School (Sundance), and My Name is Alfred Hitchcock (Telluride).
Producer John Archer continues to support auteur voices through a variety of collaborations, such as with Ben Rivers (Bogancloch) and Hannah Papacek Harper (Lost for Words), alongside a slate of co-productions with Bullitt Film, France’s Retroviseur, and Australia’s Hytra.
Cousins’ unique voice and relentless curiosity once again promise to shift the conversation around documentary filmmaking—its past, its present, and its potential to shape the future.
