we're back! applications are now open for the Open City x Another Gaze Critics Workshop ✍️ more info here >> opencitylondon.com/news/open-ci... @opencitydocs.bsky.social

it was a delight to see Sally Potter introduce her 1970 short Play, as part of @opencitydocs.bsky.social’s ongoing experimental film programme for children, ‘Listen with your eyes’. the kids asked some very sweet questions, which included asking Potter if she got her film camera from Santa!

Day 5 @ Open City Documentary Festival 🥰

Day 4 @ Open City Documentary Festival 🪩

Day 3 @ Open City Documentary Festival 🥰

🎥 @opencitydocs.bsky.social is in full swing! I'll be taking 📷 throughout the festival. Full programme of critical work and conversations: opencitylondon.com/2025-festiva...

Day 2 @ Open City Documentary Festival 🎥

Day 1 @ Open City Documentary Festival ❤️‍🔥

The Open City Documentary Festival has begun, and the opening film was SITICULOSA! 😍 This Puglia documentary works incredibly well both visually and thematically: read @clotildechinnici.bsky.social's review! @opencitydocs.bsky.social #OpenCityLondon loudandclearreviews.com/siticulosa-f...

The Open City Documentary Festival (@opencitydocs.bsky.social) begins today! 😍 Read @clotildechinnici.bsky.social's list of movies to watch at the festival, in various venues across London, on 6-11 May! 🤩 #OpenCityLondon loudandclearreviews.com/open-city-do...

The @opencitydocs.bsky.social festival starts today! With screenings across the city, workshops and surgeries for film students there's a lot going on - check out the programme⬇️ opencitylondon.com/2025-festiva...

We’re pleased to present the fourth Ian White Lecture, given by writer Esther Kinsky. In her talk, Kinsky will speak to the ways that films can teach us to abandon our preconceived notions, opening our minds to the gaze of the filmmaker. 📍 ICA 📅 Sun 11 May, 4pm opencitylondon.com/events/ian-w...

Our closing film, KOUTÉ VWA, the debut feature by Maxime Jean-Baptiste follows Melrick, a teenage boy, over a summer in French Guiana. The film traces conversations between Melrick & his grandmother, revealing the story of her son’s death. 📍 ICA 📅 Sun 11 May, 7pm opencitylondon.com/events/closi...

The Clock, Or: 89 Minutes of Free Time draws together a wealth of prints from the Austrian Filmmuseum in a somewhat surreal – or childlike – attempt at telling a story of the 20th century and the notion of the cinematic time 📍 Barbican 📅 Sat 10 May, 6:30pm opencitylondon.com/events/the-c...

In Wild Relations, filmmakers in this year’s programme will discuss the ecological resonances in their work, be it through commitment to artisanal, small scale practices, or attempts to capture the changing worlds that surround us. 📍 Rich Mix 📅 Sat 10 May, 11am opencitylondon.com/events/wild-...

Featuring short films by Ewelina Rosinska, Eiko Soga, Sally Lawton & Eva Giolo, Combined Programme: Unstable Rocks presents works which explore journeys, parenthood and landscapes. 📍 Close-Up 📅 Sat 10 May, 6pm opencitylondon.com/events/combi...

Made as Chetna Vora’s examination film, OYOYO was shot entirely in a student dorm in East Berlin. The film captures the relaxed energy of student life & offers an insider perspective on solidarity amongst a transnational community. 📍 Barbican 📅 Sun 11 May, 3pm opencitylondon.com/events/oyoyo/

Join us to celebrate the launch of MIRAJ’s double issue 13.1/2 and 14.1, making live new research and perspectives on the moving image from its recent issues, through discussion and screenings with an archival twist. Find out more here 👉opencitylondon.com/e... @opencitydocs.bsky.social

We have added a second screening of Armand Yervant Tufenkian’s IN THE MANNER OF SMOKE, a meditation on landscape, images and painting moving between California and the London studio of the painter Dan Hays. 📍 Close-Up 📅 Sun 11 May, 2pm opencitylondon.com/events/in-th...

Featuring short films by Hope Strickland, Alex Nevill and Rhea Storr, Combined Programme: A River Holds A Perfect Memory, reflects on British geographies and their connections to colonial and post-colonial histories 📍 ICA 📅 Sun 11 May, 1:30pm opencitylondon.com/events/combi...

Screening together, Lawrence Abu Hamdan's THE DIARY OF A SKY and Elisabeth Subrin's MANAL ISSA, 2024 explore the sonic reverberations of Israeli infractions into, and bombings of, Lebanese airspace in recent years. 📍ICA 📅 Sat 10 May, 3pm opencitylondon.com/events/manal...

Coinciding with the presentation of the work at our Expanded Realities exhibition, Ant Hampton will be discussing his project Borderline Visible at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. This event is open to the public with free tickets. 📅 Fri 9 May, 6pm www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/liveness-a...

🚨 There’s only 7 days to go until Open City 2025 kicks off! Grab one of our brochures around town or head to opencitylondon.com to check out the programme and book your tickets soon to avoid disappointment ⏰

LES FANTÔMES DU HARD is a journey through traces of desire, an attempt to reconstruct a lost history of hardcore sexuality in Marseille and the rediscovered archives of the legendary Mineshaft, France’s first hardcore BDSM club. 📍ICA 📅Sat 10 May, 9pm opencitylondon.com/events/les-f...

Listen with your eyes is an ongoing series of screenings that aims to create a space for children to engage with & enjoy experimental cinema. Through a range of approaches, the films in this third programme reflect on ideas of play. 📍Barbican 📅 Sat 10 May, 11am opencitylondon.com/events/liste...

Presented in collaboration with @sabzian.bsky.social, Johan van der Keuken's THE MASK moves centrifugally around Philippe, a homeless 23-year old man in Paris during the festivities around the 1989 French Revolution bicentenary. 📍Close-Up 📅 Thu 8 May, 8:30pm opencitylondon.com/events/the-m...

Join us to launch Non-Fiction 07: The Elephant, edited by Elhum Shakerifar, with readings & workshops from contributors. @suchmayer.bsky.social & Jenny Clarke will discuss their pieces, Barby Asante will lead a breath workshop & more. 📍Rich Mix 📅 Thu 8 May, 4:30pm opencitylondon.com/events/non-f...

Moving Statics is the first UK survey of Arthur & Corinne Cantrill since the 1980s. Using new visual languages, their work stages “journeys” into unfamiliar terrain, investigating the feedback between environment & art, landform & 16mm film-form, shape & light. opencitylondon.com/2025-festiva...

Join BFI Doc Society & artist filmmaker Rhea Storr for a conversation about Rhea’s path to developing her feature-length film Freedom Dreaming and how Doc Society supports artist filmmakers with a chance to ask your own questions.  📍 Rich Mix 📅 Thu 8 May, 11am opencitylondon.com/events/long-...

Across a free exhibition and a programme of events, our Expanded Realities programme showcases non-fiction storytelling which moves outside of single-channel moving image through audio, publishing and performance. 🧵 of what’s in the programme ⬇️ opencitylondon.com/2025-festiva...

This May, as part of @opencitydocs.bsky.social were hosting two programmes of films by pioneering Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab, filmed in Egypt from 1976 – 1989, offering an insight into her commitment to justice and freedom. From Wed 7 May. bit.ly/OCDFBD25

We are presenting the films of multidisciplinary artist & DJ Christelle Oyiri, aka Crystallmess. Oyiri’s work explores black diasporic & digital youth culture addressing racialised spectacle, colonial spectres and club culture(s). 📍Close-up 📅 Wed 7 May, 6:15pm opencitylondon.com/events/chris...

"A film of light touches, soft brushstrokes, blurred pixels, and slowly dissipating gasses, In the Manner of Smoke is the kind of film that benefits from multiple viewings" Multiple viewings of In The Manner of Smoke are possible at Open City with two screenings across 10-11 May ⬇️

Sanrizuka - Notes on a Struggle, organised by Ricardo Matos Cabo, highlights the Sanrizuka movement's grassroots resistance through documentaries & archival material spanning four decades including rushes shot between by Ogawa Productions and a rare set of slides. opencitylondon.com/2025-festiva...

Presented with Sine Screen, we will be hosting two events with Guanghzou-based artist, filmmaker & publisher Qin Dao. Speaking with Bo Wang, Qin Dao will present On Kino, a project archiving rare, obsolete & unfinished film material. 📍 Rich Mix 📅 Wed 7 May, 2pm opencitylondon.com/events/on-ki...

Forensic techniques have become a dominant form of artist-activist media practice. Running across the festival, Just Evidence, organised with World Records Journal, features screenings & events asking how these forensic practices can be reconciled to radical ends. opencitylondon.com/2025-festiva...

Making Films Together brings together participatory films including recent work by the Marseille-based Film Flamme collective and videos produced in East London by the community arts initiative The Basement Project in the 70s. 📍 Close-Up 📅 Sat 10 May, 3pm opencitylondon.com/events/makin...

Combined Programme: When the Sun is Eaten presents new short films by Sam Drake, Malena Szlam and Kevin Jerome Everson which capture and abstract landscapes and horizons using film stock and processing techniques. 📍 Close-Up 📅 Fri 9 May, 8:30pm opencitylondon.com/events/combi...

JOCELYNE SAAB’S EGYPTS presents the premiere of new restorations of six films made by the pioneering director in Egypt between 1977 and 1989 and offers an insight into the evolution of Saab’s politics over time, and her enduring commitment to justice and freedom. opencitylondon.com/2025-festiva...

London pals-- hope to see you at these exciting events with @opencitydocs.bsky.social, where we ask: What does accountability look like?

In AT ALL KOSTS we are invited to see how the arts play a vital role in Haiti. Against a backdrop of poverty, violence and fear, an ensemble of actors and their determined artistic director rehearse for an upcoming festival. 📍 Bertha Dochouse 📅 Sun 11 May, 1:30pm opencitylondon.com/events/at-al...

Alexander Horwath’s “transfixing gem of an essay film” (Sight&Sound) proposes a history of the US through the prism of Henry Fonda’s life & career. HENRY FONDA FOR PRESIDENT is a cinephile’s dream that transcends far beyond cinema. 📍 Barbican 📅 Sat 10 May, 1pm opencitylondon.com/events/henry...

Lovely conversation with filmmaker Maxime Jean-Baptiste about KOUTÉ VWA, which closes our festival this year.

Presented in collaboration with the Austrian Film Museum, we will be showing a programme of work by pioneering avant-garde performance and moving image artist VALIE EXPORT. 📍 ICA 📅 Wed 7 May, 6pm Followed by a conversation about EXPORT’s work. opencitylondon.com/events/valie...

Join us to celebrate the launch of MIRAJ’s double issue 13.1/2 and 14.1, with new research on the moving image through a free programme of discussions and screenings with an archival twist. 📍 Rich Mix 📅 Wed 7 May, 5pm opencitylondon.com/events/movin...

In BEING JOHN SMITH, his latest autobiographical film, John Smith explores how having the most common name in the English-speaking world has shaped him with trademark wit. Screening with other shorts by Smith which engage his biography. 📍 ICA 📅 Fri 9 May, 8:30pm opencitylondon.com/events/being...

In Combined Programme: Available Light, four new short films by Morgan Quaintance, Chiemi Shimada and Luke Fowler & Corin Sworn reflect on a range of domestic spaces as sites of life, artistic heritage and collaboration. 📍Barbican 📅 Fri 9 May, 6:30pm opencitylondon.com/events/combi...

Newly rediscovered, we’re delighted to screen Jean Pierre Olivier de Sardan’s 1969 PALESTINE WILL WIN with Antonia Cacci & Maysoon Pachachi’s 1989 VOICES FROM GAZA. Presented in collaboration with Sarha Collective & Majazz Project 📍 Rich Mix 📅 Thu 8 May, 8:30pm opencitylondon.com/events/voice...

Are you a student interested in non-fiction film? It’s your last chance to apply for our FREE Student Programme! You’ll get daily screenings during the festival, exclusive extended Q&As with filmmakers and access to our talks and workshops. Apply ⬇️ by 18 April opencitylondon.com/events/stude...