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

An ongoing series presenting rare films from the ICA Archive, screening on original 35mm and 16mm prints.

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

The endlessly blurred and tangled lines of reality and fiction, cinema and theatre, and art and life form the heart of Jacques Rivette’s cinema. Throughout his extensive body of work the French filmmaker continually eschews and reformulates the traditional patterns of narrative cinema and instead embraces mystery, conspiracy, and the inexplicable.

The first full retrospective of the great Polish director Wojciech Jerzy Has, is presented in partnership with KINOTEKA and the BFI.

Assembled from footage shot over a span of more than twenty years, Jia Zhangke crafts a boundless story of enduring but fragile love, anchored by the eternally captivating presence of Zhao Tao. The screening on 11 April is followed by a conversation between Tony Rayns and Simon Field.

Performance takes centre stage in this tale of four aspiring actresses, studying under the tutelage of a famed tutor, who find themselves embroiled in an increasingly menacing off-stage drama. 

Structured in 14 episodes (screening over three consecutive days), exergue – on documenta 14 offers a look behind the scenes of the institutional contemporary art world. Presented in partnership with Open City Documentary Festival.

To coincide with the screening of exergue - on documenta 14, Adam Szymczyk, artistic director of documenta 14, will be present in-person for an in-depth conversation, hosted by Chris McCormack. Co-presented with Open City Documentary Festival and Art Monthly.

The fourth screening in the Late Tapes series, an exploration of fetishistic desire, curated by Content Warning in collaboration with the Bishopsgate Institute’s UK Fetish Archive.

Journalist Rafał, safecracker Szpicbródka, and monk Sykstus are cellmates in Has' vivid and delirious vision where reality and fiction blur.

Inspired by James Hogg’s 1824, Has' film follows Robert’s haunting life, crimes, and encounters with a devilish Doppelgänger.

Sound and image stare each other in the face as Oksana Karpovych contrasts quiet compositions of everyday life of Ukrainians since the full-scale invasion with intercepted phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families.

A celebration of the extraordinary life of Irish writer Edna O'Brien.

18 year-old Totone spends his time drinking and partying in the Jura region of France, until reality catches up to him, and he must find a way to make a living to care for his 7 year-old sister.

A revelatory inside-look at John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s life in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s, from Academy Award-winner Kevin Macdonald.

In Angola, 1974, as independence nears, a girl and a group of Portuguese soldiers confront love, death, and justice amid war. 

Jérémie returns to his hometown for his former boss's funeral. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbour, and a strange priest complicate his visit. 

In 16th-century Germany, Balthazar and alchemist Cammerschulze flee to Venice, amid plague and religious persecution.

Unfolding as a series of interconnected conversations between Rivette and legendary writer and critic Serge Daney, Claire Denis' documentary, produced for Cinéma, de notre temps, is a wonderfully intimate invitation into the work, life and philosophy of a singular artist.

Leonardo van Dijl's debut feature is a taut study of a young athlete in crisis.

In Déa Kulumbegashvili’s second feature, an obstetrician’s secret abortion work in rural Georgia is exposed after a tragedy, threatening her purpose and freedom.

A hallucinatory masterpiece blending Bruno Schulz’s novella with Has’s obsessions, where Józef, seeking his past, finds a sanatorium portal revealing his fears. Stylistically rich, with a striking atonal score.

The festival closes with a special musical interpretation of Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bester Quartet.

Huw Wahl’s compelling analogue exploration of engineless sailing.

The ICA partners with the Garden Cinema to present a 12-film retrospective curated by Instituto Rouanet, commemorating 60 years of L.C. Barreto Film Productions, Brazil’s legendary production company, helmed by the renowned family of filmmakers.

The subject of one of Jacques Rivette's most famous essays for Cahiers du cinéma, Roberto Rossellini's tale of marital strife in the Neapolitan countryside is a groundbreaking work of modernism and a heartbreaking anatomy of a relationship.

Nelson Pereira dos Santos’s impassioned adaptation of the novel by Graciliano Ramos, which follows an itinerant family traversing a drought-stricken sertão of northeastern Brazil, is considered one of the most important works of Brazilian cinema.

Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press and Xiaolu Guo will discuss recent films by Banner, and their shared interest in the slippages of language and conflict. Banner will present two recent short films along with as a selection of earlier works including Pranayama Organ (2021).

January 2020. A film crew reunites near Wuhan to resume the shooting of a film halted ten years earlier, only to share the unexpected challenges as cities are placed under lockdown.

Freely inspired by Balzac's novella Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu and featuring outstanding performances from Michael Piccoli, Emmanuelle Béart and Jane Birkin, Rivette's exploration of the artistic process and the at times tempestuous relationship between artist and model is a profoundly moving examination of the creative process and artistic obsession.

Bruno Barreto was 20 years old when he injected new life into Brazilian cinema and announced Sônia Braga to the world with this sensuous comedy-fantasy, based on the brilliant Jorge Amado’s 1966 novel. Co-starring José Wilker (Bye Bye Brazil) and featuring music by Chico Buarque.

A cross-disciplinary festival that showcases boundary-pushing LGBTQ+ cinema, live arts, and moving image work from East and Southeast Asia and its diaspora communities.

January 2020. A film crew reunites near Wuhan to resume the shooting of a film halted ten years earlier, only to share the unexpected challenges as cities are placed under lockdown.

A burglar and the owner of a house he attempts to rob journey across Vietnam to the homeowner’s wife’s grave where he wishes to join her. 

A programme of recent artists’ moving image, exploring processes of self-discovery, curated by Abirami Logendran and Morgan Quaintance. From sexual liberation to states of heightened awareness reached through physical practice, the programme is punctuated by recordings of James Baldwin reading from his classic novel Giovanni’s Room.  

The open space for non-fiction cinema returns for its 15th edition.

A poetic exploration of Eileen Gray’s life and visionary design, unveiling the story behind her iconic modernist house, a record of art and resilience by the sea.

An insight into the private estate of Leni Riefenstahl, who became world-famous with her Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will, but continually denied any closer ties to the regime.

A special programme of eight films celebrating the work of award-winning Iranian film and theatre actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya.

A satirical look at the frenzied professional and romantic lives of the staff of a daytime TV show. Screening on a 16mm print from the ICA archive.

Yeong-gyeong and Su-hwan meet at a wedding party. He carries her home after she passes out drunk. Kang Mi-ja's Spring Night is a stark and graceful depiction of a doomed kinship. 

Through an intimate reconstruction of an important phone call, Iva Radivojević’s evocative film investigates dislocation and the nature of remembering. Followed by an in-person Q&A with filmmaker Iva Radivojević.

Commissioned to create a documentary about Argentine art collective Mondongo, filmmaker
Mariano Llinás crafts an experimental portrait of friendship, failure and self-destruction.

An essayistic exploration into the lasting ecological consequences of Belgium’s colonial rule in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.