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 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. 

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

On the occasion of the launch of How to Do Things with VALIE EXPORT, a new book on her filmic work published by the Austrian Film Museum (Vienna) and Spector Books (Leipzig), we present a selection of canonical and lesser-known films by VALIE EXPORT, followed by a conversation about the artist's work.

Sanrizuka – Peasants of the Second Fortress is the fourth in a series of seven films shot between 1968 and 1977 by Ogawa Productions in the fields of Sanrizuka. Four years into the conflict, the authorities started the coercive expropriation of the farmlands, and the violence escalated. 

Arguably the most reputed yet enigmatic film from Qin Dao, this work transcends celluloid, screen, and the social milieu of post-socialist China, while interrogating the nature of cinema. Followed by a conversation with Qin Dao and Bo Wang.

A selection of shorts tracing the Cantrills’ early filmmaking practice and their travels.

Inspired by MGM’s low budget musicals of the 1950s, Rivette crafts an all-singing all-dancing sojourn through a sweltering Parisian summer in this captivating story of love, friendship and liberation.

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

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 DIY investigation to uncover the woman behind the face of ‘Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing’, an educational software programme developed in the 1980s. 

A Tokyo factory worker’s online side business descends into paranoia and dread, in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's (Pulse and Cure) moody thriller exploring technology’s dark grip on human behaviour and morality.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

In 1977, Arthur and Corinne Cantrill took their first trip into central Australia to film Uluru. Second Journey (to Uluru) documents the filmmakers’ next visit to Uluru some years later, on a trip taken with the filmmaker Michael Lee.

In response to his latest, autobiographical film Being John Smith, this programme brings together four works that explore, in different ways, what it is to “be” John Smith.

Artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan has a sonic research practice that acts to investigate human rights abuses. In this essay film he focuses his “Private Ear” into analysing sonic data generated by the UN to chart the incessant noise pollution emanating from unauthorised Israeli plane and drone flights into Lebanese airspace. Preceded by Elisabeth Subrin's Manal Issa, 2024.

Corinne Cantrill’s sole-authored, autobiographical feature, in which she traces her life story through a series of photographs and probes the relationships between body and image, cinema and photography, the moving and the static.

Desire leaves traces – on bodies, in memories, in the flickering frames of old VHS tapes. Les fantômes du hard is a journey through these remnants, an attempt to reconstruct a lost history of hardcore sexuality in Marseille.

This programme brings together three new works by UK-based artists Alex Nevill, Hope Strickland and Rhea Storr who will all be present for a post-screening discussion.

In collaboration with the Ian White Estate, Open City is pleased to present the fourth Ian White Lecture, given by writer Esther Kinsky.

The debut feature-length work by Maxime Jean-Baptiste follows Melrick, a young teenage boy, as he spends a summer in French Guiana with his grandmother Nicole. Followed by a Q&A with Maxime Jean-Baptiste.

In a sleepy town in China, a middle-aged man is unwilling to endure a stagnant existence, and experiencing true love, decides to come out of the closet.

Inspired by MGM’s low budget musicals of the 1950s, Rivette crafts an all-singing all-dancing sojourn through a sweltering Parisian summer in this captivating story of love, friendship and liberation.

In post-war Iran, Reyhaneh seeks independence after leaving her husband, but faces family pressure, tradition, and looming financial hardship.

A playful, surreal journey through Iranian cinema’s early days, this film follows King Nasser edin Shah, who, enchanted by silent film Lor Girl, forsakes his throne to chase cinematic dreams.

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.

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 third programme in YES & NO Presents Austrian Artist Film is Queercore, a programme focusing on the close Super 8 collaboration between Ursula Pürrer and Ashley Hans Scheirl in the 1980s.

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.

Akbar, a serious actor, is torn between art, commercial roles, and his wife's desperate wish for a child.

Amid Norouz celebrations, an Abadan family traumatised by war faces addiction, strained ties, and crisis after a mistaken U.S. bombing.

The subject of one of Rivette's most famous essays for Cahiers du cinéma, Fritz Lang's last film in the U.S is, at its heart, a treatise on the very concepts of innocence and guilt, as a novelist conspires to frame himself for murder as a part of an effort to ban capital punishment.

Michio Okabe’s underground film was shot on 16mm in Shinjuku in 1968, and documents the radical spirit of Japan’s creative and artistic scene in those years.

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.

Jacques Rivette's contemporary interpretation of the Greek tragedy Elektra is a taut and elegant thriller of filial revenge imbued with an ascetic fatalism and anchored by outstanding performances by Sandrine Bonnaire and Jerzy Radziwilowicz.

As Edhi prepares to undergo gender reassignment surgery, she is filmed by a crew that includes lighting technician Alice. Exploring connections between the two women’s stories, director and queer activist Ilrhan Kim interrogates how documentaries about trans communities are made: the creative decisions, relationships, and ethical questions involved.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.