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Open City Documentary Festival

@opencitydocs

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The art of non-fiction.
14–19 April 2026, across venues in London.
Short courses & MA / MFA at @uclanthropologyofficial.

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The Case Against Space 🚀

🗓️ 30 September, 7pm
🎟️ FREE

Graeme Arnfield’s second feature, The Case Against Space, depicts what appears to be the first organised labour strike beyond Earth.

The film reconstructs the 1973 NASA mission to the Skylab space station, during which the three astronauts on board temporarily ceased work and cut communications with Mission Control in protest against their working conditions.

The film closed Open City Documentary Festival 2026 and is back in London and available to watch for free!

The screening will be followed by a conversation with Graeme Arnfield.

Ticket info via link in bio. by @opencitydocs

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a month ago

Listen with your eyes is an ongoing series of screenings for children of all ages and their grown-up companions.

It’s a space where curious minds and open hearts can come together to drift through the worlds of experimental cinema. This screening is organised in collaboration with Light Cone, the Paris-based non-profit distributor of experimental cinema. All the films in the programme are drawn from its collection of more than 7,500 films.

Presented on 16mm and 35mm, the films in this programme span seven decades, from Len Lye’s hand-painted and stencilled imagery in Colour Flight (1938) to Jodie Mack’s stroboscopic exploration of the history of weaving patterns in Persian Pickles (2012). Moving across a rich array of techniques – painting, animation, flicker and more – the programme also traverses vastly different worlds: from the magical realm imagined by Anita Thacher in Loose Corner (1986) to the cosmogonic journey of J.A. Sistiaga’s Impressions en haute atmosphère (1989), with uncanny encounters with the animal world along the way, in films by R. Breer, G. Rey and J. Smith.

Ticket holders are welcome to join us early for a free 16mm direct animation activity between 10am and 11am.

🗓️ Sunday 4 October 11am, @icalondon

Still from:
La vache qui rumine (George Rey, 1969)

More info via link in bio.

Listen with your eyes 7: Experimental films for families 🎨

🗓️ Sunday 4 October 11am, @icalondon

Still from:
Colour Flight (Len Lye, 1938)

Listen with your eyes 7: Experimental films for families 🎨

🗓️ Sunday 4 October 11am, @icalondon

Still from:
Impressions en haute atmosphère (José Antonio Sistiaga, 1989)

Listen with your eyes 7: Experimental films for families 🎨

🗓️ Sunday 4 October 11am, @icalondon

Still from:
Abstronic (Mary Ellen Bute & Ted Nemeth, 1952)

Listen with your eyes 7: Experimental films for families 🎨

🗓️ Sunday 4 October 11am, @icalondon

Still from:
Loose Corner (Anitha Thacher, 1986)

Listen with your eyes 7: Experimental films for families 🎨

🗓️ Sunday 4 October 11am, @icalondon

Still from:
Abstronic (Mary Ellen Bute & Ted Nemeth, 1952)

Listen with your eyes 7: Experimental films for families 🎨

🗓️ Sunday 4 Octo by @opencitydocs

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a month ago

The Community Cinema is back this Autumn with another programme of free screenings at our UCL East campus. We're showing everything from arthouse documentaries to romantic dramas, all specially selected by our creative community. These screenings are held every Wednesday during term-time and are open to the public, just book your free ticket via Eventbrite (link in bio)

Check out what's coming up in the next month:

Wednesday 16 September, 7 PM - 9 PM
Fringe Fest: The Past We Hold + Q&A

Thursday 17 September, 7 PM - 9 PM
Fringe Fest: Queers Questioning Queers?

Wednesday 30 September, 7 PM - 9:15 PM
The Case Against Space + Filmmaker Q&A

Wednesday 7 October, 7 PM - 9 PM
Go Fish (1994)

Images (L-R): Film stills from The Past We Hold, Queers Questioning Queers, The Case Against Space, Go Fish A collage of old photos. The central photo shows a man taking a photo of himself in a mirror by @opencitydocs

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2 months ago

Join us on 30 September, 7pm, for a Community Cinema screening of The Case Against Space in the UCL East Cinema, Stratford.

Presented by @opencitydocs - The Case Against Space reimagines NASA’s 1973 Skylab 4 mission and the first alleged labour strike in outer space. Drawing directly from NASA transcripts, the film combines extensive research with speculative interpretation to reimagine the circumstances leading up to the strike.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with director Graeme Arnfield.

Book your free ticket via the link in bio.

Bringing thought-provoking filmmaking to the big screen in East London, the Community Cinema at UCL East programme is a series of free film screenings on Wednesday evenings with films that have been specially selected by our students, academics and community partners to inspire, engage and entertain. by @opencitydocs

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2 months ago

Call for entries 2027 🌟

Send us your works for the next edition of Open City Documentary Festival!

In April 2027 we will present a diverse programme of international contemporary and retrospective non-fiction film, audio and cross media, as well as filmmaker Q&As, panels, talks and workshops.

🗓️ Early deadline 25 September 2026

More info via link in bio 🔗 by @opencitydocs

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3 months ago

Four Parts of a Folding Screen (Anthea Kennedy & Ian Wiblin, 2018)⁠
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Based on documents found in Berlin archives, Four Parts of a Folding Screen explores exclusion, statelessness and the legalised theft and sale of everyday family possessions by the National Socialist regime. ⁠
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A voice, enigmatic and sometimes uncertain, foretells of, relates and recalls the routine processes of injustice and their legacy: the creation of a diaspora of household objects, scattered amongst buildings that no longer exist. ⁠
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As the camera probes the secrets of ordinary spaces, streets and buildings around the city of Berlin, semblances of a person and a history begin to emerge and coalesce. This experimental essay film explores the space between documentary and fiction.⁠
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Followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.⁠
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Four Parts of a Folding Screen will show at @closeupfilmcentre on the 13 May at 8.15pm. by @opencitydocs

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5 months ago

Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs, 1956-62/2004)⁠
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This screening of Star Spangled to Death is an epilogue to the retrospective Seeing Through Film: Ken and Flo Jacobs at Open City Documentary Festival 2026. ⁠
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Celebrating the work and lives of Ken and Flo Jacobs, who both passed away in 2025, the programme coincides with the publication of I Walked Into My Shortcomings, an anthology of Jacobs’ writings edited by William Rose for The Visible Press.⁠
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Almost 7 hours long, Star Spangled to Death is Ken Jacobs’ magnus opus, his great New York film which would have to wait from 1959 until 2004 for completion as affordable digital video. Starring Jack Smith as The Spirit Not of Life but of Living and Jerry Sims as Suffering, this social critique of the USA, “stolen and dangerously sold-out” in Jacobs’ own words, feels as poignant and relevant today as in the 1950s when it was originally shot.⁠
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There will be 10-minute breaks between Parts 1 and 2, and between Parts 3 and 4, and a 30-minute break half-way through the screening, between Parts 2 and 3.⁠
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Star Spangled to Death screens Sunday 10 May at @barbicancentre, 11am by @opencitydocs

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5 months ago

1-day course | Documentary, Mental Health & Wellbeing: Global Perspectives Through Film.
Exploring representations of mental health, wellbeing, therapy and the diverse filmic strategies used to convey psychological experience. Examined through global films, readings, and discussions.
In Person, UCL East, Stratford, London.
Run by Jasminka Letzas, a lecturer, artist and researcher
WHEN: 1-6 PM, Saturday, 30th May 2026. (with a 1-hour break)
BOOK: link in bio ❤️
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#ucl #filmeducation #shortcourse #london #mentalhealth #weelbeing #greygardens taken in Stratford, Newham, United Kingdom by @opencitydocs

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5 months ago

The View from Our House (Anthea Kennedy, Ian Wiblin, 2013)⁠
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A woman witnesses the ordinary oppression and fear of the early years of National Socialism. She describes the sounds she regularly hears on passing a military barracks whilst walking from her house to the station. Images of the barracks recur throughout the film, suggesting the routine tyranny that precipitates the woman’s increasing fear and eventual journey into exile in London. ⁠
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The film’s structure of repetition and retelling foregrounds the way in which her life is stunted by increasing marginalisation and terror. “I’m only just eighteen but sometimes I already feel so old that I think of dying,” she writes in a letter to her would-be lover. ⁠
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The View from Our House is based in part on the memories, unsent letters and notebooks of a young photographer who lived in Berlin-Tempelhof. Aspects of her life are mapped out within this small area of Berlin through a succession of haunted images and sounds that imbue place with a sense of memory and history.⁠
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The film is the first in a loose trilogy of films focused on different members of the same family during the early years of the Nazi regime.⁠
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The View from Our House screens Sunday 3 May at @closeupfilmcentre, 8pm. Followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. by @opencitydocs

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6 months ago

Built from archive news, cartoons and films, Star Spangled to Death (2004) is a daring, epic social critique of the USA.

This monument of cinema was directed by the late Ken Jacobs (1933–2025). It clocks in at a runtime of almost seven hours – and was almost fifty years in the making.

Piercing his country’s attitudes to race, religion, wealth and war, Jacobs’s critique of history is just as striking today as it was when the film was shot.

Round out a great season of @opencitydocs with this special screening on Sun 10 May. Tickets available via the link in our bio 🔗 by @opencitydocs

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6 months ago

The 2026 festival has now come to a close ❤️‍🔥

We would like to thank every single audience member, filmmaker, panelist, speaker, volunteer, projectionist, partner, sponsor and our amazing team.

Until next year! by @opencitydocs

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6 months ago

Day 5 @ Open City Documentary Festival 💗🌅

📸
@adam_pietraszewski
@dettmartomas
@vaalrios__ by @opencitydocs

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6 months ago