Mark Cousins brings his distinctively poetic and enquiring approach to this elegiac cine-essay exploring the creative life of 20th century Scottish abstract artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. A key member of the St Ives group, Willie, as she was known, was dismissed by critics as an also-ran for much of her career. Cousins’s film harnesses Willie’s free-wheeling, associative way of looking and thinking to explore how her neurodiversity – she had synesthesia – and other factors shaped her work.
Cousins’s passion for his subject is infectious – he even gets a Wilhelmina Barns-Graham tattoo at one point – and it’s impossible not to admire his determination to avoid art world documentary cliches. Still the focus on the work first and foremost can feel a little single-minded and even limiting; a touch more biographical background colour wouldn’t have gone amiss. – the title quotes an entry in Willie’s diary about a pivotal event in the artist’s life – premieres in the main competition in Karlovy Vary and should generate interest at further festivals.
UK-Ireland rights were picked up by Scotland-based distributor Conic in advance of the festival, with a release dated for October 2024. While Barns-Graham perhaps doesn’t have the name recognition and pulling power of some of Cousins’s other recent subjects, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and cinema in general, the director’s own reputation should serve as a selling point for art world and cine-lit.