Mark Cousins displays astonishing erudition in his 16-chapter series The Story of Documentary Film, screening in the Berlinale Special Series strand (Chapter 1 makes its European premiere following a Sundance debut; the Berlinale hosts the world premiere of episodes 2-4). It’s an encyclopedic history of the nonfiction film medium from its origins to the present day, “encompassing landmark works and hidden treasures,” as the Berlinale program notes, “while revealing how the form has helped us to see and make sense of our world.”

Cousins, working with producer John Archer, his frequent collaborator, trains his focus on what he describes as “innovative films” and “the boundary pushers” in documentary. In Chapter 1, he finds those boundary pushers across the globe -- in 1929 Ukraine and 1922 Soviet Union, 1896 Palestine, early Edison Manufacturing Company films like Annabelle Serpentine Dance from 1895 and, from the same year, early films by the Lumière Brothers in Lyon, France. He interrogates ethical and political dimensions of nonfiction cinema that first emerged more than a century ago and resurface in films of recent times.

Cousins also explores the ways documentary film differs from journalism, a distinction which critics and filmmakers of today sometimes fail to appreciate.

In conversation with Deadline’s Matt Carey, Cousins shares how he put the series together and his observations about documentary’s past, present and future.