6th–11th
May 2025
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Wednesday 24th April

Thursday 25th April

Friday 26th April

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Falling Lessons: The Films of Amy Halpern 1

Fri 26 Apr, 20:30 , ICA

A perennial and dynamic presence in American avant-garde circles from New York to Los Angeles, Amy Halpern (1953–2022) remained dedicated to probing cinema’s special capacity to heighten perception and reveal ephemeral states of consciousness. Though her films may appear dream-like, they are designed, as she once put it, to render what it is like to be truly lucid and awake, experiencing reality in its fullness. Informed by a profound awareness of the world around her, Halpern’s rich, associa...

Pages: 12

Saturday 27th April

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In Focus: Simon Liu 2 – Life as Usual

Sat 27 Apr, 18:00 , Close-Up

Featuring seven short films by Hong Kong artists spanning the last 45 years, Life as Usual surveys the often surreal and uncanny underbelly of life in the metropolis through gestures of disobedience, imaginary landscapes, and desires for an alternative future. Curated by Simon Liu. Diversion Ellen Pau / 1990 / Hong Kong / 6’ / Digital / Sound Combining television footage of swimming contests across Victoria Harbour in the 1960s with other archival sources, Diversion reflects on a wat...

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315 + Artistes en Zone Troublés

Sat 27 Apr, 18:30 , Genesis Cinema

315 Daniel Jacoby / 2024 / Netherlands, Peru / 15’ / Digital / Spanish spoken, English subtitles In 315, Peruvian artist Daniel Jacoby narrates a series of personal stories and historical events that have occurred, over the years, on his birthday, the 31st of May. Over the course of the film, comprised of home video footage, the oppressive logic connecting these anecdotes and events is slowly revealed. So too are the occlusive tactics employed by the Peruvian state, that had, since 1989...

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Essay Film Festival: Milestones

Sat 27 Apr, 20:00 , ICA

Milestones is a film about the American Left in the 1970s and the afterlives of political activism, a sprawling epic that interweaves the lives of numerous characters - hippies, farmers, immigrants, Native Americans and activists - as they navigate the complexities of American life. The film reflects on the lives and experiences of the filmmakers through intimate conversations in both scripted and unscripted moments. It explores the intricacies of community life, relationships and societal ch...

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Grandma’s Grammar 3: Of Griots & Genealogies

Sat 27 Apr, 20:30 , Bertha DocHouse

Grandma’s Grammar Jean Pierre Bekolo / 1996 / Cameroon / 8’ / Digital / French spoken, English subtitles Jean-Pierre Bekolo sat down with legendary Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety, who propounds a conceptualisation of cinema rooted in the lessons and spirit of grandmother. Playing with the rhyming slippages between grand-mère and grammaire, Mambety declares that “grandma herself allows us to betray grammar,” as she demands a mode of storytelling that renews and reinvents itself....

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The Sojourn + A Stone’s Throw

Sat 27 Apr, 20:30 , Close-Up

The Sojourn Tiffany Sia / 2023 / USA, Taiwan / 32’ / Digital / Mandarin Chinese spoken, English subtitles “The Sojourn imagines a restless landscape film in Taiwan. Visiting scenic locations shot by King Hu, the short experiments with the road movie genre and its intersection with the martial arts epic. Sia meets actor Shih Chun, who played the protagonist in Hu’s Dragon Inn, Touch of Zen and other wuxia films, as he guides the quest to re-encounter the iconic landscapes where Dragon Inn ...

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Open City Documentary Festival x Sisu – Saturday Night Party

Sat 27 Apr, 21:00 , Rich Mix

Dance the night away with us as we celebrate another year of Open City Documentary Festival. Music will be provided by Sisu – a community providing a platform to educate, inspire and showcase aspiring women and non-binary DJs, producers and behind the scenes roles. Line-up: Anjali Nadiya Airali Chickie Tickets for this event are pay what you can. Rich Mix will take a small booking fee and the remaining box office will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Pages: 12

Sunday 28th April

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Non-Aligned Film Archives 08: Le cinéma manquant de Madeleine Beauséjour (The Missing Cinema of Madeleine Beauséjour)

Sun 28 Apr, 17:45 , ICA

Feminist, activist, filmmaker and editor Madeleine Beauséjour (1946-1994) is a figure who has remained relatively unknown, even though she was at the heart of 20th century political and social struggle. Amongst her various (often clandestine) political activities, Beauséjour fought tirelessly for the rights of immigrant families in France and was a founder of Révolution Afrique (1969), a political collective engaged in training the revolutionary advance guard in African countries. She also he...

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Falling Lessons: The Films of Amy Halpern 2

Sun 28 Apr, 18:00 , Close-Up

Injury on a Theme Amy Halpern / 2010 / USA / 7’ / 16mm / English spoken For Lynda Gudde. “A short sweet film concerning torture.” (A.H.) Falling Lessons Amy Halpern / 1992 / USA / 64’ / 16mm / English spoken With Michael Snow, Shirley Clarke, Julie Dash, Chick Strand, Pat O’Neill, and many others. “Falling Lessons is a film about eye-contact and fear, and about how nourishment can be gained from a look. It takes the form of a series of encounters between the indi...

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In Focus: Jessica Sarah Rinland 2

Sun 28 Apr, 18:15 , Bertha DocHouse

Darse Cuenta Jessica Sarah Rinland / 2008 / UK, Argentina / 3’ / Digital / Spanish spoken, English subtitles One of Rinland’s early experiments with 16mm, Darse Cuenta (which can be loosely translated as “to become aware” or “to notice”) is reminiscent of structural cinema in its use of a single 100ft roll of film. An unidentifiable image appears and disappears (is it a window?), whilst in the soundtrack, someone (the filmmaker?) reads a poem by Argentine psychotherapist Jorge Bucay, in ...

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Cinematographa

Sun 28 Apr, 20:00 , ICA

Join us for an evening of films and discussion highlighting the analogue camerawork of an exceptional group of intergenerational, intersectional women artists and cinematographas. Screened on 16mm, 35mm and digital formats, the films in this programme span multiple histories and creative practices, highlighting the technical and creative prowess of the women interviewed in Margaret Salmon’s new book, Cinematagrapha, published by Secession and Walther und Franz König in 2023.  Curated by M...

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Grandma’s Grammar 4: Time Machines

Sun 28 Apr, 20:15 , Close-Up

Like Chantal Akerman (D’Est) and Barbara Hammer (My Babushka: Searching Ukrainian Identities,) Naomi Uman was drawn to return to the Eastern Europe of her great grandparents, in an act of reverse pilgrimage. Uman moved to Ukraine in 2006 (where she lived on and off for ten years), a place her Jewish ancestors had left a century ago to escape persecution. Her “Ukrainian Time Machine” cycle recounts, in the form of short films and longer diaristic compendiums, Uman’s immersion in the rural and ...

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Combined Programme: I Am Writing

Sun 28 Apr, 20:30 , Genesis Cinema

The Wind Is Taking Them Ann Carolin Renninger / 2023 / Germany / 25’ / Digital / German spoken, English subtitles Artist filmmaker Ann Carolin Renninger follows the daily rhythms, rituals and fascinations of three people – Rovin, Maria, and Christopher – whose rural domestic spaces appear to them as sites of endless wonder. In his remote home on the Baltic Sea, Rovin searches the skies, fire and moss for the origins of the cosmos, illustrating his findings with drawings of microbes and as...

Pages: 12

Monday 29th April

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Nicolás Guillén Landrián: A Gaze Restored (Programme 2)

Mon 29 Apr, 20:20 , Barbican

Landrián Ernesto Daranas Serrano / 2023 / Cuba, Spain / 80’ / Digital / Spanish spoken, English subtitles When Nicolás Guillén Landrián died in Miami in 2003, it had been just over 30 years since he’d made his last Cuban film. In the intervening period he was ostracised by the state, his films banned, eventually going into exile in 1989. In 2019 Ernesto Daranas started a concerted effort to restore his films from the materials in the Cuban film archives. Made by Daranas to accompany...

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Non-Aligned Film Archives 09: Caméras dans le combat (René Vautier et Nicole Le Garrec)

Mon 29 Apr, 20:30 , Genesis Cinema

In the early 1970s, Breton activist filmmakers René Vautier and Nicole Le Garrec began work on a book and a series of films about politically committed cinema throughout the world. Including films from Sweden, Japan, Palestine and Cuba, Caméras dans le combat was intended to provide an account of how cinema was being utilised within the social, labour and revolutionary struggles of the time. However, neither the book nor the films were ever completed. Conceived from Vautier's notes, found in ...

Pages: 12

Tuesday 30th April

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