Author of The Story of Film, columnist for Prospect Magazine, co-founder with Tilda Swinton of the Ballerina Ballroom Film Festival in Nairn, film producer through his company 4way films with Bobby Carlyle, Irvine Welsh and Antonia Bird, Mark Cousins has a first class degree in Film and Media Studies and Fine Art from the University of Stirling. He has lectured on film history, been published internationally and made documentary films on arts and political themes.

A former Director of the Edinburgh Film Festival, he now presents Scene-by-Scene on BBC television, conducting career interviews with actors and directors including Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Shohei Imamura, Jack Lemmon, Sean Connery, Tom Hanks, Dennis Hopper, Kirk Douglas, Rod Steiger, Jeanne Moreau, Lauren Bacall, the Coen Brothers, Bernardo Bertolucci, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Donald Sutherland, Ewan McGregor and Jayne Russell. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland