Open City Documentary Festival

Open City Documentary Festival The 16th edition of the festival will take place in venues across London from 14–19 April 2026.

Open City Documentary Festival creates an open space in London to nurture and champion the art of non-fiction cinema. Based at the UCL Centre for Public Anthropology, we deliver training programmes, an annual documentary festival, the bi-annual Non-Fiction journal and events throughout the year that aim to challenge and expand the idea of documentary in all its forms.

Call for entries 2027 🌟Send us your works for the next edition of Open City Documentary Festival!In April 2027 we will p...
16/07/2026

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 🔗

Four Parts of a Folding Screen (Anthea Kennedy & Ian Wiblin, 2018)Based on documents found in Berlin archives, Four Part...
11/05/2026

Four Parts of a Folding Screen (Anthea Kennedy & Ian Wiblin, 2018)

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.

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.

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.

Followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

Four Parts of a Folding Screen will show at on the 13 May at 8.15pm.

Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs, 1956-62/2004)This screening of Star Spangled to Death is an epilogue to the retrospe...
07/05/2026

Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs, 1956-62/2004)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Star Spangled to Death screens Sunday 10 May at , 11am

The View from Our House (Anthea Kennedy, Ian Wiblin, 2013)A woman witnesses the ordinary oppression and fear of the earl...
30/04/2026

The View from Our House (Anthea Kennedy, Ian Wiblin, 2013)

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.

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.

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.

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 N**i regime.

The View from Our House screens Sunday 3 May at , 8pm. Followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

The 2026 festival has now come to a close ❤️‍🔥We would like to thank every single audience member, filmmaker, panelist, ...
20/04/2026

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!

Day 5 @ Open City Documentary Festival 💗🌅📸
19/04/2026

Day 5 @ Open City Documentary Festival 💗🌅

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Day 4 @ Open City Documentary Festival 🌟🪩📸 pak ameliag._
18/04/2026

Day 4 @ Open City Documentary Festival 🌟🪩

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pak ameliag._

Day 3 @ Open City Documentary Festival 2026 🌸📸 pak
17/04/2026

Day 3 @ Open City Documentary Festival 2026 🌸

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pak

17/04/2026

Every year Open City Documentary Festival commissions a filmmaker previously screened at the festival to create the trailer for the following edition.

Our 2026 Festival trailer marks the 50th anniversary of John Smith’s classic film The Girl Chewing Gum.

We spoke with John about the film and reflections 5 decades on.

You can read the full interview via the link in bio 🔗

Day 2 @ Open City Documentary Festival 🎞️📸
16/04/2026

Day 2 @ Open City Documentary Festival 🎞️

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