The Essential Cornishman

Combining fact and informed speculation with cutting-edge computer graphics and animatronics effects, the series set out to create the most accurate portrayal of prehistoric animals ever seen on the screen.

A poet is driven to complete a poem within an old writing case by the ghost of the last owner.

Martin Ward is a cove fisherman, without a boat. His brother Steven has repurposed their father’s vessel as a tourist tripper, driving a wedge between the brothers. With their childhood home now a getaway for London money, Martin is displaced to the estate above the picturesque harbour. As his struggle to restore the family to their traditional place creates increasing friction with tourists and locals alike, a tragedy at the heart of the family changes his world.

A Cornishman's travels in Ireland, through Wexford, Waterford and Cork in search of the familiar.

Mark Jenkin explores his fascination with the magic of film and its life-giving properties in this brand new short film, commissioned by the BFI to mark the Film on Film Festival.

Started in 1993, finished in 2018. "David Bowie Is Dead" is a road movie in and out of london.

A young couple quest for a roof in this Cornwall-set drama with the atmosphere of a thriller, made with hand-developed B&W 16mm.

When a fishing boat, the Rose of Nevada, lost with all hands 30 years ago, mysteriously reappears in the old harbour of a forgotten Cornish village, for those who remember, it’s surely a sign. The boat must go out to sea again and maybe then the luck of the devastated village will turn. Young father Nick and enigmatic newcomer Liam join captain Murgey, and they head to sea. But when they return, satisfied with their haul, something is amiss – they’ve slipped back in time, and the villagers greet them as if they are the original crew.

A walk through England’s south coast evokes the artists who lived and worked there.

A wildlife volunteer on an uninhabited island off the British coast descends into a terrifying madness that challenges her grip on reality and pushes her into a living nightmare.

The Newlyn School of artists flourished at the beginning of the 20th Century and the film focuses on the wild and bohemian Lamorna Group, which included Alfred Munnings and Laura and Harold Knight. The incendiary anti-Modernist Munnings, now regarded as one of Britain's most sought-after artists, is at the centre of the complex love triangle, involving aspiring artist Florence Carter-Wood and Gilbert Evans, the land agent in charge of the Lamorna Valley estate. True - and deeply moving - the story is played out against the timeless beauty of the Cornish coast, in the approaching shadow of The Great War.

The curious joy in the warm passing of time is most acute in the long shadows of the end of the line autumn coming stillness

“I love films that foreground the fact that you are watching film,” states British director Mark Jenkin, who in his film diary returns, among others, to the Cornwall locations which gave rise to his mesmeric Enys Men. The series of Super8 shots taken from his travels and the comprehensive voice-overs make for a fascinating mosaic of encounters, observations, formative quotations from cinematic and other works, and also possible fantasies. Here, Jenkin demonstrates his ability to give his films an appealing timeless quality and to connect the familiar with the curiously enigmatic. One hundred and one interesting facts from the filmmaker’s diary. (Viktor Palák)

"In 1993 I travelled to London from Cornwall with the intention of shooting a music video for 'London' by The Smiths. I had transcribed the lyrics and noted the timings and had then made a detailed shot-list. The whole thing would be edited in camera on a single roll of Super 8. Over the next few years I projected the film so many times that much of it became damaged. Here is what is left of that first roll, inter-cut with footage shot a few years ago in East London when I started shooting film again." - Mark Jenkin

Living in a remote coastal village and with no cash two local friends stumble across two holidaymakers who mysteriously vanish along with a fishing boat and the local hotel-owner's prize winning rabbit.