Mark Jenkin films Cornwall through scratched images, jolting cuts and voices that sound slightly out of place. We value his attention to working lives, though he sometimes lets a mystery drift.
Fi1m perspective
Hands, rope, a winch, then the catch coming over the side: Mark Jenkin stays with the fishing in Rose of Nevada (2026) long enough for us to notice the effort. We felt the cold and the boat’s tilt because he keeps us close to the work instead of hurrying through it. He shoots, edits and scores the film himself, and the grainy 16mm image jitters while voices sit slightly apart from the mouths speaking them. Felicity Hickson’s production design keeps the boat cramped and working, and that practical setting helps the strangeness take hold. This is his most watchable film, although its middle drifts once the mystery has been established.
Bait (2019), his breakthrough, remains our stronger recommendation. Edward Rowe’s grounded performance gives us someone to stay with as residents and incomers quarrel over a Cornish fishing village. Jenkin’s hand-processed black-and-white images deny the coast the polished finish of a property photograph, and the added dialogue makes ordinary exchanges uncomfortable. His cutting pushes that discomfort further, sometimes interrupting our attention to a person before we are ready to leave them. The humour matters: awkwardness and wounded pride keep the disputes recognisably human.
With Enys Men (2022), he moved towards repetition, memory and the uncanny on a remote Cornish island. A woman, a flower and a standing stone supply less to follow than the disputes in Bait. Rose of Nevada brings a clearer story back into view, putting George MacKay’s Nick Dyer and Callum Turner’s Liam aboard a fishing boat that has returned after years missing. Its first hour earns our attention by letting the men get on with the fishing.
Jenkin’s control of so many jobs is useful, but it can also leave us too aware of his decisions. In Bait, the music works with the troubled images, yet it is the displacement of the speech that stays with us. We want him to hold on faces as patiently as he holds on fishing gear, and give the people more time when a mystery begins to drift. Start with Bait; allow Rose of Nevada a little more patience in the middle.
Biography
Mark Jenkin is a British filmmaker based in West Cornwall. Born on 28 March 1976 in Newlyn, he typically writes, directs, photographs, edits and composes the music for his features, which are shot on 16mm film using a clockwork Bolex camera without sync sound.
His feature debut Bait (2019) won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. He followed it with Enys Men (2022) and Rose of Nevada (2025), on which he also served as editor, cinematographer, writer and composer. His partner, actor Mary Woodvine, has appeared in several of his films.
