As the pre-eminent fictitious documentarian of her generation, Philomena Cunk has tackled such meaty subjects as Life, Earth, Britain, and Shakespeare over the last few years. Now, the brainchild of Diane Morgan and Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror) is preparing to tackle arguably the most important thing to have ever existed in the entire world, ever: cinema. And the cannily titled Cunk On Cinema, coming soon to BBC iPlayer and BBC Two, is set to see Cunk pick the brains of some of the industry’s finest from both sides of the camera — including Michael Bay, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Empire‘s very own Helen O’Hara — in her efforts to explore the magic of the movies.
Per the BBC’s official synopsis, the three-part Cunk On Cinema will follow Morgan’s Philomena Cunk as she covers “the invention of the camera, to the New Wave filmmakers of the 60s, right up to the entrance of CGI and what the future of AI holds.” Aided by the aforementioned Bay, Cumbebatch, and O’Hara — as well as a slew of additional contributors (Spider-Verse composer Daniel Pemberton! Die Hard writer Steven E. de Souza! Avengers Assemble DP Seamus McGarvey! Marks Kermode and Cousins! And more!) — the Beeb goes on to state that Cunk will “attempt to demystify it all while sitting in lumpy seats with stale popcorn, asking herself where did cinema come from? And why? What does it want? And why can’t it tell us?”
With Cunk On Cinema‘s scope set wide, a deep well of industry talent including stunt performers, casting directors, curators, critics, and academics from a diverse array of disciplines and backgrounds assembled, and Bolton’s galaxy-brained filmmaker extraordinaire Philomena Cunk at the helm, suffice it to say that we expect nothing less than one of the televisual events of the century here. Watch this space for a release date reveal — and pardon us while we go and ask Helen how the devil she hid this from us for so long!
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BBC
