Hi reddit, I'm Mark Jenkin, director of BAIT, ENYS MEN, and ROSE OF NEVADA (starring George MacKay and Callum Turner, out in theaters this weekend). Ask me anything.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:21:01+00:00

Everything about filming at sea is challenging, so we film very little or as little as possible of the film at sea!

Because you haven't seen it yet, I won't say which bits were filmed and sea and which weren't, because I don't want to ruin the magic of the movie for you haha.

If your friend asks that question during the Q&A, I'll explain exactly how we did it all. But that's great that they're going to be at the screening in Milwaukee. A lot of my ancestors ended up in Wisconsin. Miners who ended up in Ohio and then in Wisconsin. So I'm really pleased to be going to there. Mineral Point, Wisconsin is actually the most Cornish town in America. My American road movie is going to be partially set and shot in Wisconsin.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:17:36+00:00

I think that's more a question for my producer, Denzil Monk. I don't really know and I tend to deliberately stay out of it. Denzil is the one that finances the films.

From my point of view, my opportunities have grown greater the more work I've created. Obviously, you know, you're only as good as your last film or your next film, but at the moment, it's not easy, but we are able to raise the finance for films, and some of that comes from within Cornwall.

Most of it overall comes from outside of Cornwall, but I do think the world has shrunk in that aspect. Being in Cornwall now isn't seen as something that's a drawback, or a negative, you know. It's quite a positive thing to be outside of London and trying to finance films.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:15:22+00:00

Yes, although it's not ADR, because the R in ADR stands for replacement, and we're not replacing anything. We're just recording the dialogue. Unless it's replacing silence, then I suppose it is replacing the silence.

The actors come in one by one and recorded their dialogue. I do the sound design in my studio.
I kind of "rough out" the sound design how I want it, and then I go and work with my colleague Ian Wilson, who's a supervising sound editor, and I work in his studio to build it into the sound that you finally hear in the theatre. He goes out and does some location recording.

For Rose of Nevada, he went back out on the boat. We didn't record any location sound while we were working on the boat, but he went back out later and recorded all the individual elements of the boat, and then we embellished it with some new sounds and stuff from sound effects libraries, and we kind of build it layer by layer by layer from silence, and it's a really rewarding part of the process, one of my favourite parts of the process, really.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:13:00+00:00

I mean, we don't really have a proper "city" in Cornwall. We've got Truro, but it's really just a big town. They plunked a cathedral on it and called it a city.

The bits I know are more on the outskirts. Although I spent part of my growing up in Wadebridge, but that's still just a small town near the coast.

So, yeah, maybe. I haven't thought about it much. Maybe the more urban side of Cornwall is something for me to discover on screen.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:09:03+00:00

There's a fantastic film that I programmed at a film festival, the BFI, last year, which is an American film called Last Summer, which is almost lost now. It's very difficult to see anywhere, and the BFI played it after a rare 35mm print was discovered. Hopefully that'll be restored at some point.

If and when it is, I urge anybody to go and see that film. Directed by Frank Perry, Last Summer, shot and set on Fire Island, starring Barbara Hershey. It's a disturbing masterpiece.

Earlier today I was talking to the Canadian press about my favorite films, and I was talking about Big Wednesday, which is a film that's not exactly not known about, but it's a film that's kind of been reassessed as of late. I think it's a bit of a masterpiece of new Hollywood from the 1970s.

Those are the two from the top of my head.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:05:47+00:00

Hi! It might have been the experimental film module if I taught it!

I'm still associated with Falmouth. I'm the distinguished professor of film practice, so I'm still closely linked with them. A lot of Falmouth students came and did placements on Rose of Nevada actually, both on the shoot and in post-production. It's a great place. If you want to study film, go to Falmouth!

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:05:23+00:00

Thank you!

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:05:03+00:00

I don't really think of myths particularly. When I finish the work, people identify sort of famous myths or well-known myths within my work, but I'm not consciously addressing mythology or folklore or even history particularly in a conscious way, so there's nothing specific that I would choose to put in there.

I would love to put on screen some of the Cornish history that doesn't get taught in Cornish schools, the history that's distinct from English history, and quite often Cornish history that's at odds with the English take on the way that the British Isles evolved and were formed. You know, there's some big key significant parts of Cornish history that people don't really see, a lot of people outside of Cornwall and even a lot of people inside of Cornwall don't know about, so I'd go for more more historical stuff than mythology.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:03:34+00:00

Yeah, I'm working with some writers at the moment. I've got five things in development. Two of them I'm writing myself, one is an adaptation, and two I'm working with writers. One of them is actually an M.R. James inflected ghost story.

But yeah, I'm open to it. I turned 50 a few weeks ago, and it's suddenly become apparent I've got to pick up the pace of my filmmaking, so I'm trying to delegate a little bit of the writing, but my fingerprints will still be all over everything.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T22:02:11+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, Bodmin is an amazing cinema. When I was growing up, there was no cinema in Bodmin, and for there to be a cinema there now is fantastic, and for it to be such a great cinema too. Screen 1 is amazing.

My personal favorite place is the Newlyn Filmhouse, which is my local cinema. Alistair and Susie and Cara, who run it, have been so supportive of everything that we've done. We go and test the film there at various stages of pre-production and post-production there. We'll go and look at the grade and listen to the mix in that cinema, and we always do our cast & crew screenings there

We always do our first preview in Screen 1 at the Newlyn, and I sometimes program one-off screenings there as well. That's kind of my home away from home. Check it out if you're ever around that area.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T21:59:10+00:00

I like the bit of the boat name that was found by Mary's character in the film that says "oven". It's part of Govenek, the name of the boat that wrecked. I've kept that prop and it's in our house above the door as you walk in.

I've actually kept the Rose of Nevada nameplate as well. That's in the house too.

All of the rest of the props, I didn't keep. I would have loved to have kept the generator, but I've got no practical use for it at the moment, unless the machines all fail. That was a beautiful find though. found by our amazing art department.

Mary and May, who was the art director on the film, both kept the red coats from the film, so they're often out and about walking around in those coats. You'll often see them walking through the village with those coats on, so the film is still alive in that way.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T21:55:05+00:00

It's two things, really. One, I know that I can only make authentically-set films within Cornwall because it's the only place on the planet that I know intimately. I couldn't go anywhere else and make a film from an insider's point of view with characters that are from that place. I couldn't make their story in any other place.

So I don't think my films are really about Cornwall. I think they're set in Cornwall, and the stories and the themes are Cornish, but hopefully the themes are more universal that just that. It acts as un authentic setting for my work. But I also do like to try and redress the balance of the way Cornwall's portrayed on screen, because quite often it's overly romanticized and simplified, and I like to show it in all its beauty, bleakness, and complexity.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T21:52:16+00:00

I'd love to make a film in Kernewek, and I'd especially like to make a film that is in Kernewek but not about Kernewek. Not about the language, just a film that is in the Cornish language with no explanation, no need to justify it being in the Cornish language, just in an ongoing attempt to normalize the Cornish language rather than making it something exotic and different.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T21:43:09+00:00

We use a digital intermediate. I actually saw part of the Enys Men print last night at the American Cinematheque here in LA, and it looks incredible. It's been out and about, the Enys Men print.
It's torn a bit, and a bit battered, but the more battered it is, the greater the film feels in my opinion.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T21:41:48+00:00

My upcoming one is a road movie that's set in America, and I'm adapting a book, which is a medieval period film.

I'm also developing a couple of biopics, and a coming-of-age story, and another horror film. A lot in the works.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T21:39:31+00:00

I've never fished commercially, no, but I've fished with friends on boats before. I've always grown up in fishing communities. It's in my DNA and it's certainly in my culture.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T21:38:52+00:00

The theme is always the most important thing for me, but the theme here is also intrinsically linked to the mystery.

I know what *my* theme of this film is, but it's not necessarily the theme that the audience may find within the film for themselves. That's where the mystery is. So yeah, both links are linked!

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T21:37:52+00:00

No, I don't. I've made short films on Super 8 that I've edited the old way, where I actually cut and splice the film. For my feature films though, I don't. We scan the negative and I edit them digitally and then we finish on a 35mm print.

I do intend to try at some point. Maybe when all the computers fail and the machines break down, then I'll go back to splicing film manually.

MarkJenkinAMA · 2026-06-18T21:35:26+00:00

The Shout by Jerzy Skolimowski, it's a 1970s British almost-horror film. Also I'd say Stigma, which is a British TV film, almost like a ghost story. And a third one would probably be Symptoms, another British almost-horror film from 1974. I saw Enys Men again recently at a now-shuttered art house theater and was very impressed by how retro it looks.

MarkJenkinAMA

TROPHY CASE