Cinephile Summer Camp: A Dispatch from Tilda & Mark’s Magical “Pilgrimage”

Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins help pull The Screen Machine. Photo by Peter Knegt.

Articles in various UK newspapers detailing what was occurring would make their rounds through the pilgrimage.  Written by journalists who had popped into our gaggle for a few hours to interview Swinton and Cousins and take a few photographs, the articles defined the event not by its magic, but by its relation to the accidental celebrity behind it. This article in The Guardian, for example, used the deglamorisation of Tilda Swinton as an entry point into their story, and “Oscar-winning actor” as her defining quality. Or this piece in The Sunday Herald, which called Swinton a “Hollywood star” on repeated occasions despite the fact that she resides in the area of Northern Scotland the newspaper represents.

It is articles like those that make Bresson’s aforementioned quote feel all the more crucial in this regard.  Because, if it wasn’t already clear that Swinton is essentially the antithesis of the term “Hollywood star,” it certainly was over the past eight and half days.  Film history educator, fellow pilgrim, impromptu roadside disco administrator, camp counselor. But not “Hollywood star.”  And she was all of those things in complete partnership with film director and journalist Mark Cousins - one of the most enthusiastic cinephiles you might ever meet - and one often neglected from coverage of the festival because he wasn’t once co-stars with George Clooney or Brad Pitt (not to mention filmmaker Matt Lloyd, who helped organized the event and was thanked by Swinton at screening when she noted her and Cousins “have all these ideas, but Matt makes them happen”) .

What should define A Pilgrimage more than anything is the generosity and creativity that Cousins and Swinton have put forth in facilitating an event that found a way to present cinema as community in such an organic and joyous way.  The forty or fifty people that participated in it - locals and internationals, journalists and filmmakers, children and adults -  went into it incapable of making expectations because the event was so unchartered.  They left it ready to take on their respective paths, themselves inspired by what had just transpired.

The Screen Machine. Photo by Peter Knegt.

The festival was Cousins and Swinton’s follow up to last year’s “Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams,” which took place entirely in Nairn, Scotland - a seaside town on Scotland’s northern shore.  I had read with fascination about that event - which brought folks from around the world to a former bingo hall which was converted into a cinema, screening some of Swinton and Cousins’ favorite films.  So when I read about this sequel of sorts, I figured passing up such an opportunity - one literally once in a lifetime as Swinton and Cousins have agreed that this incarnation of the festival will never occur again - would be a horrible waste.

After “Ballerina,” Cousins and Swinton decided their festival should hit the road, beginning at that train station, and continuing back to Nairn.  On a red double decker bus, we would travel to seven Scottish villages - most of which had never enjoyed a cinema - screening twelve films programmed by Swinton and Cousins, and themed around journeys and the self-exploration they generate. This was made possible by The Screen Machine, a fabulously decorated, 80-seat mobile indoor cinema following behind the bus.  Once a day, Swinton, Cousins and the pilgrims would get off the bus and physically pull the 37-ton The Screen Machine as far as a mile. 

The festivities officially began as we all gathered on the top floor of the double decker bus. The pilgrims - some friends of Cousins or Swinton, but most - like me - curious folks from dozens of different countries - anxiously began introducing themselves to one another, whispering questions regarding what exactly was about to take place.  As the bus took off through the scenic Scottish Highlands, Swinton and Cousins welcomed us to their “little experiment.” They warned that this was obviously not something they (or anyone) had attempted before, and there might be a few bumps along the road. This proved to accurately foreshadow the day in front of us, which would include heavy rain that soaked many of the campers (I barely salvaged my laptop by leaving the tent in the middle of the night to sleep on the floor of the double decker bus), and the vehicle physically breaking down, leaving us temporarily stranded at our first stop.

Though somehow, the mishaps just added to the magic.  When we awoke from our first sleep on A Pilgrimage, soaked and cold, Cousins was standing outside the campground, holding a placard that read “campers, sorry you got really wet” and handing out cups of coffee and hot chocolate. We all gathered inside the Screen Machine to dry off and enjoy what Cousins announced as the “Scottish premiere” of Iranian filmmaker Mohamed Ali Talebi’s “Bag of Rice.” 

—this dispatch continues on page two—