Team
Laverne Caprice
Festival Marketing Manager
Laverne is the Marketing Manager at Open City Documentary Festival. She has worked on various UK film campaigns as well as film festivals such as Rianne Picturesâ Women X. She is also a writer, presenter and podcast host mainly focused on film and culture.
ContactLucy Wardley
Festival Producer
Lucy is the Festival Producer and Expanded Realities Programmer at Open City Documentary Festival. She has worked with the festival in a variety of capacities including on the guest and programming teams and holds an MA in Documentary Practice from Queen Mary University of London.
ContactBeth Privitera
Short Courses Programmer
Beth Privitera manages the year-round short course programme. She has previously worked with festivals such as the BFI London Film Festival, Balkans Beyond Borders, Flatpack and the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art. She is an events producer and programmer, and in 2023 delivered an interdisciplinary arts festival in independent venues across Paris. She currently co-runs London Experimental, an annual event that celebrates experimental work at the intersection of moving image and visual art.
MarĂa Palacios Cruz
Festival Director
MarĂa Palacios Cruz is a film curator, writer and educator. Before joining Open City Documentary Festival, she led the Film Curating course at ElĂas Querejeta Zine Eskola in San Sebastian (Spain). MarĂa has worked for many years as an independent curator for film festivals and cultural institutions worldwide. She was a programmer for the Courtisane Festival (2008-2023) and Deputy Director of LUX, the UK agency for artistsâ moving image (2015-2020). She is a co-founder of The Visible Press and one fourth of The Machine That Kills Bad People, a bi-monthly film club hosted by the ICA in London.
ContactSiavash Minoukadeh
Programme & Marketing Coordinator / Associate Programmer
Siavash is the festivalâs Programme & Marketing Coordinator and Expanded Realities Programmer. He has previously worked at Watershed, Bristol and worked on festivals including BFI Flare and London Film Festival. They are also a curator and writer, working mainly with moving image.
ContactOliver Wright
Director of Programming
Oliver is responsible for the festivalâs film programme, as well as our year-round screening events. He has been involved with the festival since its inception and has been programmer since 2015.
ContactElizabeth Dexter
Associate Programmer
Elizabeth Dexter makes books, subtitles, translations, and works closely with filmmakers in production. She is the technical manager and projectionist for the Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival as well as the coordinator of a Galician lab for independent and artistsâ cinema. She has worked with the BFI, Auguste Orts, Dokufest, the MoMA Department of Film and several co-op and independent cinema spaces in Europe, most recently Close-Up and Kino Armata. She is a current participant of the 2023 Baltic Analog Lab School.
Emily Mason
Associate Programmer
EmilyâŻMason is a film programmer based in London. She holds an MA in Film Studies, Programming and Curation from the National Film and Television School. Since graduating,âŻEmily has worked for Edinburgh International Film Festival and London Film Festival, as well as previous editions of Open City as Guest Coordinator.
Abiba Coulibaly
Associate Programmer
Abiba Coulibaly is a film curator with a background in critical geography. As well as programming for Open City Documentary Festival, she programmes for Film Africa and Magnum Photos Film Festival which she also founded. She has recently joined the Royal Academy of Artâs School of Architecture as an Associate Lecturer, continuing to combine her film practice with questions of spatial and civic equity after having founded Brixton Community Cinema and Atlas Cinema, two experiments in what democratising access to cinema could look like.
Marta CalderĂłn
Associate Programmer
Marta is a film curator and event producer. She has curated programmes for SCI-FI-LONDON, Fringe! Queer Film Festival, and London Short Film Festival. In 2023, Marta founded Cinema Mentire, a film club dedicated to showcasing underrepresented Latin American films in the UK, and in 2024 launched Spectra, a queer non-fiction film club at UCL East, where she curates a programme of films exploring LGBTQ+ stories through documentary cinema.
Jesse Cumming
Programme Advisor
Jesse Cumming is a Programmer with Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival as well as a consultant with Berlinale Forum and Open City Documentary Festival. He previously served as a Programming Associate with the Toronto International Film Festival. His writing has appeared in Cinema Scope, Canadian Art, The Brooklyn Rail, MUBI Notebook, C Magazine, Hyperallergic, Another Gaze, and more. He is currently a Media Lecturer with Ryerson Universityâs Cairo Campus.