ANIMAL MAGIC: THE FILMS OF MARK LEWIS
Starts Wednesday 12 July 2006
Seven films from award-winning director Mark Lewis, whose comical nature documentaries focus on man's quirky and quizzical relationship with animals.
Watch Mark Lewis introduce each film
SEASON GUIDE
Cats, rats, toads, chickens and more - see the line-up
DIRECTOR INTERVIEW Mark Lewis
"I do like animals but I'm not dotty about them"
Films about nature exist in a strange TV bubble. Occasionally, they draw our attention to environmental horrors, but for the most part they focus on the degree to which animals can be said to resemble us in their sexual and eating habits (I am not here referring to David Attenborough and his work).
Mark Lewis has something different to offer. He is intrigued by the extent to which ordinary people have unusual fascinations with animals, or even come to resemble them. His films are hugely self-aware, often satirical in their take.
He is an Australian, who has also worked a lot in the United States, and we are proud to show what he would probably disdain to call his oeuvre.
It's impossible to watch these seven films without laughing, and it's hard to come away from them without some additional sense of the paradoxes of humanity.
