Directing

Christophe Cousin

Christophe Cousin is a French documentary writer-director, born in 1976. The son of farmers, he took the helm of a start-up at the age of 24, then set off around the world by bicycle for two and a half years, covering more than 30,000 kilometres. He came back with the need to write and to film: his books include Le bonheur au bout du guidon, Sur la route des Utopies and Dans les roues de Jack Kerouac. For seven years he co-presented Les Nouveaux Explorateurs on Canal+ and directed some twenty films among nomadic peoples and migrants (Nomades Land), from the Sahara to the Arctic, from Amazonia to Papua. The ecological cause then became the heart of his work. Il était une fois l'Arctique (France 3) won the Best Screenplay Award and the City of Hendaye Award at FILMAR; Le climat, les hommes et la mer (France 3) won the Best Cinematography Award at FILMAR and was selected for the Japan Prize; Notre planète (in)habitable (Canal+) gives a voice to eleven major figures of ecological thought. For Arte, he wrote and directed the series Secrets de roches, created and edited the series L'arbre qui cache la forêt, and wrote Terre, les forces du vivant. He conceives his films as poetic and pragmatic pleas, to pass on knowledge, inspire wonder and awaken consciences.