A continuing series spotlighting new films that expand the possibilities of the medium and provide a vision for its future.

A continuing series of in-depth retrospectives exploring the work of cinema's great artists, both past and present.

From a distinctive period in a filmmaker or actor’s career to the varied cinematographic interpretations of a great novelist's work, this continuing series offers an opportunity to draw connections across mediums and to narrow in on the details.

One of the most original, self-assured, yet undersung voices of the French New Wave, Jacques Rozier crafted, across a career spanning five decades, a cinema attuned to the beauty and heartbreak of chance encounters, improvised days and spontaneous play.

A subtle meditation on memory and performance, Hong Sangsoo's latest film unfolds through a series of increasingly intimate conversations, as he continues his exploration of the boundaries between lived experience and artistic creation.

Rozier’s final film is a joyful compendium of his major themes and strategies as well as one of the funniest depictions of the theatre ever committed to celluloid. 

Jacques Rozier’s filmmaking stands out for its originality, innovation, and nonconformity. Emmanuel Barnault's documentary delves into Rozier’s impromptu creativity and direct approach offering a captivating look at the enduring relevance and influence of his work in contemporary cinema.

A key figure of the Japanese New Wave, Nagisa Ōshima's body of work is one of the most vital, challenging and admired in cinema history. This programme brings together nine of his films with a particular focus on the work he made through his own production company in the 1960s and early 70s, illuminating the anti-establishment spirit and formal radicalism running through his cinema.

An adaptation of Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe's unsettling and politically trenchant fable, Nagisa Ōshima's The Catch tells the story of an African-American pilot captured by the inhabitants of a remote mountain village in the final days of WWII.

A legendary meta-soap opera that has maintained a devoted underground following since 1981, it captures the improvisational heat of Harlem life on gritty U-matic video to explore what Ishmael Reed calls the "triteness of everyday life."

12-year-old best friends Ish and Maram wrestle to hold on to their friendship in the wake of a police stop and search. As the ripples take hold, the boys try to make sense of the men they are becoming – and how ‘letting go’ can be the hardest part of growing up.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s visionary final film unfolds in the hours before a nuclear holocaust. Among many other awards, The Sacrifice won the Cannes Grand Prix in 1986, the same year that Tarkovsky died of cancer in Paris at the age of 54. 

Andrei Tarkovsky's extraordinary and haunting exploration of exile, memory, and faith returns to the big screen in a new 4K restoration.

Directed by Portugese filmmaker João Botelho, As Meninas Exemplares is whimsical ode to childhood, based on the writing of the Countess of Ségur and inspired by the painter Paula Rego.

The Synthetic Sincerity Lab based at the University of Southern England are trying to create authentic AI characters as part of a new research project. The head of the lab Professor SonG, licences the films of Marc Isaacs' to better understand what his AI characters are lacking and, in turn, agrees the Filmmaker can document their working process.

Sumitra Peries' groundbreaking Sri Lankan film offers a tender and transporting journey through young dreams and first loves.

Francesco Sossai’s dazzling sophomore feature is many things at once: a road movie, a casual caper, a tribute to a vanishing industrial Italy, a scruffy intergenerational odyssey, and free-flowing bender through time and space.

The latest film from Karim Aïnouz is an outrageous satire on the absurdity of the patriarchal family.

A London-based Lebanese journalist and a Syrian activist and cameraman retrace their love story over thirteen years of war, revolutions and exile. Drawing on intimate personal archive, Birds of War asks what it means to build a life together in a world shaped by conflict.

On Vancouver Island in the late 1990s eight-year-old Sasha and her Hungarian immigrant family attempt to build a new life, only to be destabilised by the increasingly dangerous behaviour of her older brother, Jeremy.

An opaque journey through the Georgian countryside, Alexandre Koberidze's latest film is a remarkable exploration of absence, as a father traces a path through villages and football fields in search of his missing daughter.

Vladlena Sandu, a survivor of the war in Chechnya, studies her traumatic memories in order to transcend and transform them via cinema in her poetic debut feature.

The Final Film Festival is a film festival in London, showcasing new independent and restoration premieres to a local audience.

Wrestling with writer’s block for her first film, Bouchra, a queer Moroccan jackal living in NYC, starts having difficult yet overdue phone calls with her mother in Casablanca that begin influencing the project. 

30-year-old Danielius returns to his hometown to sell his parents’ flat, but the visit lasts longer than expected in Vytautas Katkus' delicate study of homecoming, fatherhood, and belated farewells.

Songs of Forgotten Trees, which won Anuparna Roy the Best Director award in the Orizzonti competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, is a gentle ode to female friendship.

A playful spin on theatrical adaptation, Alejo Moguillansky's latest film is a delightfully imaginative take on Samuel Beckett's Fin de Partie, punctuated by music, tennis, and another exceptional turn by Laura Paredes.

Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill’s riveting documentary, shot over 3 months, following a group of women going through basic training for the US Army. Screening as a part of Contemporary Films 75th Anniversary celebration.

A landmark programme of restored and rediscovered films tracing Howard Brookner’s legacy through William S. Burroughs, Robert Wilson, downtown New York and AIDS-era memory, shaped by Aaron Brookner and Paula Vaccaro's 15-year effort to preserve, remaster and reactivate his archive.

In 2007, French actress Juliette Binoche and British dancer-choreographer Akram Khan
stepped away from their established careers to embark on a bold artistic experiment.
Over six months, they co-created In-I, an intense, boundary-pushing performance they
would go on to stage 100 times around the world.

Weaving together oral histories, archaeological field notes, regional legends, poetry, and song, Maureen Fazendeiro's The Seasons is a remarkable portrait of the Alentejo region of Portugal, its people, and its stories.

 As pioneers of the structural film movement, Michael Snow (1929-2023) and Joyce Wieland (1930-1998) reshaped and redefined experimental cinema. 

Walerian Borowczyk’s critically acclaimed and influential medieval tale — a beautiful tragedy told with pitch-black humour and the director’s remarkable idiosyncratic inventiveness. Screening as a part of Contemporary Films 75th Anniversary celeberation.