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 latest film from Hong Sangsoo reunites Kim Minhee and Kwon Haehyo in an autumnal tale of desire, self-expression and the inescapable nature of the past.

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.

James Baldwin left New York behind for Paris in November 1948. Filmmaker Yashaddai Owens paints an impressionistic portrait of these early days on rich 16mm black-and-white, capturing a transformative moment in the life of a young artist.

When artist Maggie breaks her femur, her husband Joel, a famous photographer, becomes her caregiver. The hard truths of life together provoke an attempt to find a shared peace while there's time.

For two years, filmmakers Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau followed a militant activist community of squatters, anarchists, farmers in France. Composed of forty-one long takes, the film quietly assembles an immersive portrait of the movement and those involved alongside their activism.

In rural Northern India, recently widowed Santosh reluctantly takes the place of her murdered police constable husband in this complex thriller.

Jacques Rivette's joyously madcap tale of a librarian and a magician whose chance encounter leads them into a strange Henry James inspired melodrama, is an entrancing examination of the nature of filmmaking and watching.

Jérémie returns to his hometown for his former boss's funeral. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbour, and a strange priest complicate his visit. 

A tense and human musical about a family that survived the end of the world, from the director of The Act of Killing.

An exploration of a world shaped by neurodiverse perspectives, capturing diverse subjects navigating environments both challenging and comforting. Characters, some concealing their autism, others thriving in their communities, share a common goal: finding a space free from societal norms.

Despite its somewhat beleaguered production and a less than rapturous reception from critics upon its release, Jacques Rivette's final film of the 1970s is a perfect distillation of the paranoia, conspiracy and mystery that defined much of his work during the previous two decades. 

A selection of work by influential French documentarian Sylvain George, the first of its kind in the UK.

In transit through the city of Melilla, a Spanish enclave in Morocco, Malik and his friends, minors of Moroccan origin, try to reach Europe. Day after night, they wander the city in all directions, exploring its most burning pasts and presents.

In Angola, 1974, as independence nears, a girl and a group of Portuguese soldiers confront love, death, and justice amid war. 

Themes of love and migration play out in the fire and frenzy of a New York kitchen in Alonso Ruizpalacios' adaptation of Arnold Wesker's stage play.

The first full retrospective of the great Polish director Wojciech Jerzy Has, is presented in partnership with KINOTEKA and the BFI.

A selection of three short films, No Border, N’entre pas sans violence and Nocturne Blanc-Chasseur, made between 2007 and 2015 on mini-DV and Super 8, focused on the experiences of migrants in Paris.

Felicja hides actor Wiktor from persecution in her flat, but his selfishness strains their relationship, damaging her life and career.

Tadeusz obsessively searches for his missing son, using conflicting scraps of conflicting information gleaned from possibly unreliable witnesses, but his quest alienates him from family and reality.

The city of Paris becomes a labyrinthine board game, as a chance encounter between a claustrophobic ex-con (Bulle Ogier) and a leather-clad young woman (Pascale Ogier) quickly embroils them both in a sinister underworld conspiracy.

Puerta del Sol, Madrid. A document of the 15M movement, one of the largest movements of class struggle of this century, functioning as an experimental newsreel. 

Jane Birkin and Geraldine Chaplin star as actresses recruited by an enigmatic playwright (Jean-Pierre Kalfon) to star in a new work, but as rehearsals begin in his grand mansion, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur. A beguiling and haunting exploration of the mysteries of love and art.

Based on short story by Chekhov, Wojciech Has’ first film after a decade's pause explores an elderly professor’s existential musings and personal frustrations.

A revelatory inside-look at John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s life in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s, from Academy Award-winner Kevin Macdonald.

18 year-old Totone spends his time drinking and partying in the Jura region of France, until reality catches up to him, and he must find a way to make a living to care for his 7 year-old sister.

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.

A screening of Wojciech Has’ eleven short films, made between 1947-1955.

Closing out a landmark cycle of noir's that began with Laura, Otto Preminger's tale of an ambulance driver drawn into the orbit of a wealthy young woman is one of the filmmakers most enigmatic works. In his essay L'essentiel, Rivette argued that the film was a skeleton key for understanding Preminger's work at large and his belief in mise en scène.

A cult classic, this adaptation of Jan Potocki’s novel blends Napoleonic and Inquisition-era stories with supernatural twists, anchored by a bewildered-looking Zbigniew Cybulski.

Brutal and despairing, Jacques Rivette's radical reinterpretation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights transposes its tale of love and revenge from the English countryside to a Chateau in 1930s France.

Performance takes centre stage in this tale of four aspiring actresses, studying under the tutelage of a famed tutor, who find themselves embroiled in an increasingly menacing off-stage drama. 

Structured in 14 episodes (screening over three consecutive days), exergue – on documenta 14 offers a look behind the scenes of the institutional contemporary art world. Presented in partnership with Open City Documentary Festival.

A celebration of the extraordinary life of Irish writer Edna O'Brien.

To coincide with the screening of exergue - on documenta 14, Adam Szymczyk, artistic director of documenta 14, will be present in-person for an in-depth conversation, hosted by Chris McCormack. Co-presented with Open City Documentary Festival and Art Monthly.

The fourth screening in the Late Tapes series, an exploration of fetishistic desire, curated by Content Warning in collaboration with the Bishopsgate Institute’s UK Fetish Archive.

Journalist Rafał, safecracker Szpicbródka, and monk Sykstus are cellmates in Has' vivid and delirious vision where reality and fiction blur.

Sound and image stare each other in the face as Oksana Karpovych contrasts quiet compositions of everyday life of Ukrainians since the full-scale invasion with intercepted phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families.

Inspired by James Hogg’s 1824, Has' film follows Robert’s haunting life, crimes, and encounters with a devilish Doppelgänger.

In 16th-century Germany, Balthazar and alchemist Cammerschulze flee to Venice, amid plague and religious persecution.

Unfolding as a series of interconnected conversations between Rivette and legendary writer and critic Serge Daney, Claire Denis' documentary, produced for Cinéma, de notre temps, is a wonderfully intimate invitation into the work, life and philosophy of a singular artist.

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

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.

A hallucinatory masterpiece blending Bruno Schulz’s novella with Has’s obsessions, where Józef, seeking his past, finds a sanatorium portal revealing his fears. Stylistically rich, with a striking atonal score.

The festival closes with a special musical interpretation of Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bester Quartet.

Huw Wahl’s compelling analogue exploration of engineless sailing.

The ICA partners with the Garden Cinema to present a 12-film retrospective curated by Instituto Rouanet, commemorating 60 years of L.C. Barreto Film Productions, Brazil’s legendary production company, helmed by the renowned family of filmmakers.

The subject of one of Jacques Rivette's most famous essays for Cahiers du cinéma, Roberto Rossellini's tale of marital strife in the Neapolitan countryside is a groundbreaking work of modernism and a heartbreaking anatomy of a relationship.

Nelson Pereira dos Santos’s impassioned adaptation of the novel by Graciliano Ramos, which follows an itinerant family traversing a drought-stricken sertão of northeastern Brazil, is considered one of the most important works of Brazilian cinema.

Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press and Xiaolu Guo will discuss recent films by Banner, and their shared interest in the slippages of language and conflict. Banner will present two recent short films along with as a selection of earlier works including Pranayama Organ (2021).

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.

Freely inspired by Balzac's novella Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu and featuring outstanding performances from Michael Piccoli, Emmanuelle Béart and Jane Birkin, Rivette's exploration of the artistic process and the at times tempestuous relationship between artist and model is a profoundly moving examination of the creative process and artistic obsession.

Bruno Barreto was 20 years old when he injected new life into Brazilian cinema and announced Sônia Braga to the world with this sensuous comedy-fantasy, based on the brilliant Jorge Amado’s 1966 novel. Co-starring José Wilker (Bye Bye Brazil) and featuring music by Chico Buarque.

A vividly unsettling mixture of sexploitation sleaze and hard-boiled melodrama, Bruno Barreto’s follow-up to Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands centres on a doomed romance set against the backdrop of a wanton killing spree in Rio’s Copacabana.

A police chief is sent to a diamond mine to stop a tyrannical inspector. While travelling through the forest, he becomes involved in a tragic love affair with a beautiful indigenous girl.