A continuing series spotlighting new films that expand the possibilities of the medium and provide a vision for its future.

A continuing series of in-depth retrospectives exploring the work of cinema's great artists, both past and present.

The pageantry and brutality of bullfighting are drawn in stark relief in Albert Serra’s sublime portrait of the charismatic Peruvian-born torero, Andrés Roca Rey. 

Enigmatic and endlessly intriguing, the cinema of German filmmaker Angela Schanelec defies easy classification. For more than thirty years Schanelec has crafted a singular body of work that is both elliptical and philosophical. Drawing and departing from classical dramaturgy in almost equal measure, Schanelec's cinema, at its heart, is a cinema of being and becoming, a profound exploration of the very act of existing.

A gang of poor youths in Madrid plan a heist to fund a bullfighting dream. Carlos Saura’s realist style marked a bold new voice in Spanish cinema, now restored after Franco-era censorship cut key scenes.

Set in a dystopian near-future Tokyo, Neo Sora’s striking debut feature follows a group of teenagers challenging the rigid expectations of society.

Hamid is part of a secret group pursuing the Syrian regime’s fugitive leaders. His mission takes him to France, on the trail of his former torturer, whom he must confront.

In Paris, beloved sex worker Rosa meets working-class Julien, sparking a romance that challenges her carefree life. Paul Vecchiali’s overlooked gem explores class and female sexuality, anchored by Marianne Basler’s magnetic performance.

Sixteen years after the defeat of their great enemy, a group of former revolutionaries must reunite when he resurfaces, to save one of their own’s daughter, in Paul Thomas Anderson's loose adaption from Thomas Pynchon's Vineland.

In the aftermath of a conspiracy-minded father’s unexpected death, his daughter receives his patent for an experimental healing device in this striking collaboration between filmmaker Courtney Stephens and actress Callie Hernandez.

A key member of iconic bands The Dirty Three and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, multi-instrumentalist and renowned film composer Warren Ellis has cut a brilliant and unorthodox figure in music for over three decades. This fly-on-the-wall documentary offers both a deeply personal insight into one artist’s life.

As we fail to address the climate crisis, activists cross the line into civil disobedience with chilling consequences for their lives and our protest rights. Presented with Client Earth, this screening is followed by a panel discussion witht the filmmaker, individuals appearing in the film, and Client Earth expert Kyle Lischak.

Dwayne Johnson plays legendary mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr, whose meteoric rise is haunted by addiction and personal strife in Benny Safdie's knock out sports biopic.

Harris Dickinson’s debut, featuring Frank Dilane in a career-defining role, is a lyrical portrait of youth, loss and fragile resilience though the experience of rough sleeper in London.

In this SXSW hit, the cult phenomenon of Rocky Horror is explored in depth like never before with an extraordinary cast of contributors.

One of the great works by the often overlooked Soviet filmmaker Boris Barnet, By the Bluest of Seas is a euphoric tale of love and friendship filled with lyrical imagery and bursting forth with desire, laughter and music.

Astrid’s thirteen-year-old son Philip returns after an unexplained absence of a week. Schanelec’s fourth consecutive collaboration with actress Maren Eggert, which earned her the 2018 Berlinale’s Best Director award, is a quietly precise study into a fracturing domestic life.

A brilliantly chilling film set in Prague during the Nazi occupation, telling the story of Karl Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrušínský), a professional cremator, for whom the political climate allows free rein to his increasingly deranged impulses for the 'salvation of the world'.

Music traces fate, loss and hope across continents and generations, in a transcendent reimagining of the Oedipus myth. 

Following a screening of one of the greatest films of the 21st century followed by a conversation between writers Philippa Snow and Emily LaBarge on the influence of the work of David Lynch on their new respective publications. 

The BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express returns to the ICA for its 69th edition running from 8 to 19 October.

Ernesto Martínez Bucio’s audacious debut finds five children deposited in the chaotic and ramshackle home of their eccentric and emotionally absent grandmother.

When her mother goes missing somewhere in Ireland, artist Myrid Carten returns from London to find her. Her search takes her into a feuding family, a contested house; and a history that threatens to take everyone down, including herself.

An unattributed nuclear missile is launched at the US, igniting a chain response to identify the responsible party and to decide on how the nation will respond, in Kathryn Bigelow's latest.

After leaving her pop idol group and starting a new life as an actress, Mima soon finds herself overwhelmed by a wave of provocative roles that go against her wishes. Before long, a string of murders begins to unfold, targeting those around her…

Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall star in the masterful new film from Ira Sachs, an intimate, richly cinematic rendering of a conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz.

Every second of Souleymane’s new life in France is precious. Having fled Guinea, his asylum interview looms. He powers through the streets of after dark Paris as a delivery rider, sleeps in hostels and prepares for his make-or-break appointment. 

Films in this programme consider how spaces hold the weight of what came before and the traces of what may emerge, moving through landscapes where memory, body and terrain shifts and transforms against time.

These films embody memories: some personal, others inherited or found. At times they’re mesmerising, yet fissures can appear in the depicted recollections. Subjectivity comes into focus. Established narratives are destabilised.

Paul Thomas Anderson's sprawling epic about family, faith and power, centres upon Daniel Day-Lewis's Machiavellian silver minor turned oil prospector, during California's turn-of-the-century petroleum boom. Selected by Tanoa Sasraku to accompany her exhibition Morale Patch.

Spanning nearly five decades, Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos' body of work is, in a truly homeric tradition, an epic journey through myth and history.

A striking fusion of documentary, drama, and myth, Angelopoulos debut feature is a haunting tragedy that draws from both Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy and film noir to reconstruct a crime and its consequences.

In a sedate Massachusetts suburb circa 1970, unemployed family man and amateur art thief J.B Mooney sets out on his first heist. With the museum cased and accomplices recruited, he has an airtight plan. 

Filmed on broken Bolex cameras and developed from a script of loose poetry, Levers traces a series of oneiric encounters in the Red River Valley following a sudden blackout after the unveiling of a new sculpture.

A sensitive documentary following Pulitzer winner Lynsey Addario, a conflict photographer balancing dangerous assignments with motherhood and deep personal sacrifice.

Theo Angelopoulos' second feature, and the first part of his trilogy of history, Days of '36 leans further into the procedural tendencies of his debut as he crafts a densely layered investigation into the machinations of political corruption.

The explosive new documentary from director Garo Berberian, charts the wild rise of dance music — from its birth in the gay black clubs of Chicago, through Manchester’s acid house revolution, the outlawed days of illegal raves and pirate radio.

A sweeping journey through Greek history and an intimate epic of love and death, Angelopoulos landmark film follows the travails of a travelling theatre troupe, as they are swept along by the bloody tides of history from Nazi occupation to civil war.

The true story that sparked an international movement, chronicling the harrowing case of Julieta, a woman falsely accused of infanticide, and Soledad Deza, the fearless lawyer who takes on the highly controversial case. 

The UK's music documentary film festival returns for its twelfth edition with a programme of four screenings.

In the late 1970s, Nash the Slash emerged as one of music’s true enigmas, an electric violinist and sonic alchemist blending classical finesse with punk rebellion. From scoring Un Chien Andalou live to mesmerizing audiences with his analog arsenal, Nash pushed the boundaries of performance and sound. 

After paying tribute to and introducing the photographic and pictorial work of Peter Christopherson (1955-2010) and John Balance (1962-2004) to a larger audience, founding members of the cult formation COIL, Timeless editions have had the duo’s filmed archives restored.

In the capital of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca, Orsolya works as a bailiff. She has to evict a homeless guy from a cellar one day, which has disastrous results.

Two conspiracy obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet earth.

In 1936, as villages across Mandatory Palestine rise against British colonial rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, looking for a future beyond the growing unrest.