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.

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

This Machine that Kills Bad People features two films with children as their protagonists and collaborators: Christmas at Moose Factory (1971) by Alanis Obomsawin, and Bloody Beans (2013), written and directed by Narimane Mari.

Elderly farmer Rasul forms a bond with a young worker in this poignant tale of love, class, and convention.

Exalted by many among the Nouvelle vague, in particular Rivette, Japanese filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi's final film, completed just months before his death, interweaves portraits of five women working in “Dreamland,” a brothel in Tokyo’s notorious and then historic Yoshiwara red-light district.

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. 

Set across two wars, this moving drama follows Gilaneh, a mother whose dreams are shattered as she cares for her war-scarred son and supports her daughter through love, loss, and resilience.

A film about memory, identity, and the joy and confusion of searching, Rivette combines Pirandello with an almost screwball comedy sensibility in this effortlessly breezy roundelay of intersecting lives and loves.

The light breaks on a long summer’s day in Iceland. From one sunset to another, Una, a young art student encounters love, friendship, sorrow and beauty.

Benicio del Toro is Zsa-zsa Korda, one of the richest men in Europe, in Wes Anderson's latest, a story of a family and a family business. 

In the remote mountains of rural Taiwan, Oom, an undocumented Thai migrant works as a caregiver to the elderly and disabled in the face of enduring hardship and exploitation. 

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.

A 17-year-old girl joins her father and his friend on a forest hike, where quiet tensions mount. An assured portrayal of restraint and rupture, featuring a standout lead performance.

The ill-prepared crew of an American documentary production stumble into a rural town in Argentina in pursuit of their next viral story, and things spiral into from bathos into trendy mayhem.

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 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. 

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.

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.

Inspired by Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, this poignant drama follows Farideh, a struggling mother in Tehran, trying to support her family and find hope for her fragile, dream-filled daughter, Yalda.

A solitary clockmaker finds his nefarious attempts at blackmail sidetracked by the appearance of a mysterious woman who bears a striking resemblance to a former lover. Rivette returns to his Scènes de la vie parallèle cycle with this sublime and moving work about time, memory and love. 

Homa, the most accomplished nurse in the hospital is asked to care for the elderly mother of the owner of the hospital. The next ten days sees continuous snow fall, trapping both women but opening a host of unknown doors.

One of two films Jacques Rivette cited as defining an entire generation of French cinema, Robert Bresson's tale of sexual intrigue, rivalry and revenge among Parisian socialites, is a piercing study of the pitfalls and power of love.

An incisive exploration of the social mores of courtship and the maddening nature of desire, Jacques Rivette's adaptation of Honoré de Balzac's novella La Duchesse de Langeais is a biting chamber drama of selfish passions and competing agendas.

A special screening of the BAFTA and BIFA nominated documentary The Hard Stop, marking ten years since its release. The film examines the aftermath of the 2011 riots following the police shooting of Mark Duggan, an unarmed Black man killed by the Metropolitan Police during a “hard stop” manoeuvre in Tottenham, North London.

An Italian traveler finds himself drawn into the world of a travelling circus after a chance encounter on a mountain roadside. Jacques Rivette's swan song is a deceptively slight return to one of his most beloved obsessions — the interplay between life and performance.

Inspired by a true story, this touching film follows Shokoo as she brings her ailing ex-husband into her home, confronting love, memory, and forgiveness alongside her current husband, Reza.

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.

Cinema-ye Azad, or Free Cinema, was an underground movement of filmmakers in Iran that began in 1969, with the explicit aim of creating a fully independent cinema. This programme brings together two films which represent the range of sensibilities and approaches encompassed within Cinema-ye Azad.

A collage of archival segments from the 1993-1994 years of Dyke TV that still speak powerfully to lesbians today — stories that make us laugh, flirt, rage, and organise. 

SAFAR Film Festival, the UK’s leading platform for independent Arab cinema, returns from 11-28 June 2025 for its landmark 10th edition. 

Celina Escher’s documentary follows Teodora and The Seventeen – a group of women accused of murder because of having a miscarriage in El Salvador - in their struggle to regain their freedom from prison.

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.