“For there is the rule, and there is the exception. There is culture which is the rule, and there is the exception, which is art.”  – Jean-Luc Godard

As an institution created by artists, the ICA has always been animated by an inherently interdisciplinary spirit, whether it be across mediums or within them. It has also remained consistently dedicated to supporting emerging artists, alternative methodologies, and non-industrialised conceptions of the mediums it houses.

At a time when opportunities for artists to develop work outside established structures are contracting, the ICA is renewing its commitment to supporting emerging artists with Emerging London – a new annual season tuned to London’s artistic communities. 

Over the past few months as we’ve collectively reflected on the ideas that animate the ICA, a number of questions began to present themselves to us, both in relation to the realities of contemporary film culture in the UK and the role the ICA Cinema should play as a part of it.

At the heart of this deliberation was a question: how can the ICA Cinema meaningfully support emerging artists in 2026? Over the past few years, the ICA Cinema programme has substantially shifted toward one that is more curatorially engaged with the medium's past and present. This movement is perhaps best exemplified by two strands, the first, Off-Circuit, which provides a platform to new films that otherwise wouldn’t be seen in UK cinemas, and the second, Long Takes, a series of in-depth retrospectives exploring the work of cinema’s great artists, both past and present.

Both were established as a means of addressing contemporary issues in those particular areas of film culture. However, these are far from the only areas of contemporary film culture in the UK with major issues to address. With the rapidly disappearing critical publications, the maddeningly uninspired bureaucracy of the funding bodies or the myriad of ahistorical film courses who seem more interested in creating production line technicians rather than students of the art form, it isn’t much of a stretch to say that large parts of the major infrastructure of contemporary film culture in the UK are no longer fit for purpose.

And yet, despite all of this doom and gloom there is cause for hope, as many wonderful inventive and daring new films, criticism and curatorial projects continue to emerge each year. However, these films, programmes, works of criticism and even the burgeoning passions of young film students increasingly seem to be emerging in spite of the infrastructures that are supposed to support them, rather than because of them.

As Lauren Bacall once famously said “the industry is shit, it’s the medium that’s great”. With these words in mind, perhaps it's time to take a long overdue departure from this industrial approach to cinema that has undergirded the UK’s film culture for so long, and try something different. 

While, the ICA is undoubtedly an international institution and the ICA Cinema is a profoundly international programme, it is also a physical space, in a particular location. The ICA Cinema is a place which people gravitate to, both to watch films and to share that experience with others. Although the ICA Cinema in its current form primarily exists as a space to watch, and occasionally discuss, films, it has become abundantly clear to us, that it has a responsibility to be more.

It is for this reason that in 2027 we will be launching Forum des Cineastes, a year-long critical forum bringing together a group of emerging critics, filmmakers and curators to watch, discuss, write, make, and research cinema, and in the process to lay a foundation for an alternative film culture in London.

Rather than understanding film history solely as a linear succession of movements and auteurs, or isolated national cinemas, the programme approaches it as a circuitous and fundamentally interdependent history. From the nouvelle vague to El Pampero Cine and beyond, cinema’s most transformative moments have rarely emerged in isolation, but through porous networks of filmmakers, critics, programmers, cinephiles and cultural spaces, where acts of making, watching, writing about, preserving and projecting films have continually informed one another. The Forum draws from these myriad histories with a magpie-like spirit attempting to cut together elements, learnings and methods from a variety of divergent perspectives to shape something uniquely equipped to respond to our contemporary reality.

The term cinéaste, in all its malleability, perhaps most closely captures the cross-cutting conditions through which this programme hopes to operate. There are many ways of being a cinéaste, from making to thinking, watching, writing, programming, preserving, circulating and living with cinema. In the spirit of Alain Bergala’s conception of creative analysis the Forum imagines a space in which these diverse modes of seeing, making, writing and thinking about cinema can emerge, interact and transform each other. Forum des Cinéastes will convene weekly, moving between informal post-screening discussions, readings, practical workshops, work-in-progress presentations and conversations with visiting filmmakers, artists and industry practitioners, who will serve as passeurs in the tradition of Serge Daney.

The Forum is conceived as a space for sustained collective inquiry, in which research, critical reflection and experimental practice continually inform one another. Central to its methodology is a commitment to working across disciplines as each cinéaste is encouraged to engage with filmmaking, writing, programming, criticism, curating and archival practice, irrespective of their existing specialism or experience. Rather than reproducing the professional divisions of the contemporary film industry, the Forum seeks to cultivate an openness to unfamiliar practices, recognising that new ways of thinking about and working with cinema often emerge through encounters and knowledge of different forms.

Participants will have opportunities to test ideas, share unfinished work, develop collaborations and respond critically to one another's practices. The emphasis is not solely on the production of finished works, but on the processes of inquiry and experimentation through which new possibilities for cinema in London might emerge. The Forum will remain deliberately malleable, its direction shaped by the evolving interests, questions and practices of its participants.

 

This is a London-based programme and is only suitable for those who can commit for the full duration of one year (January to December 2027).

Applicants must be 18 or older. Regular attendance is required with flexibility. The programme will take place on weekday evenings, with occasional daytime and weekend gatherings.

To apply please send a sample of your work and motivation letter, as outlined below, via email to cinema@ica.art or by filling in the form accessible via the Apply here button above.

Applications close on Thursday 20th November at 23:59.

- Samples of work can include writing, filmmaking, programming/curation.

Motivation Letter (Max. 1000 words)

Please address the questions below as part of your letter: