Open City Documentary Festival 2021 will celebrate the art of non-fiction through 47 new non-fiction films presented 8-14 September in London and 13-23 September online. The new film programme includes 10 world premieres and 26 UK premieres, and films from 26 different countries. 6 works in the programme are first or second features. Full programme here.
After its online presentation in 2020, the festival returns in 2021 to its traditional venues – Bertha DocHouse, Curzon Soho and the ICA – and extends for the first time to the Genesis Cinema in the East and Ciné Lumière-Institut français and the Goethe-Institut in West London. The Festival Hub in Chinatown will host the free Expanded Realities exhibition and a programme of talks and workshops. Mimosa House, an independent non-profit gallery space in Holborn, will present Alia Syed’s exhibition Meta Incognita (1-11 September, free entry).
World premieres of Icarus (after Amelia) by Margaret Salmon and Inner Outer Space by Laida Lertxundi will open the festival on Wednesday 8 September at Curzon Soho. Filmed during the extended lockdown period – between March 2020 and May 2021 – in and around Govan, Glasgow, Icarus (after Amelia) is a quasi-anthropological study of female labour in contemporary Britain. Inner Outer Space is Lertxundi’s first film since relocating to the Basque Country from California.
Open City Documentary Festival will close on Tuesday 14th September at the ICA with a rare 16mm projection of James Benning’s TEN SKIES (2004), described as “a work to be experienced communally in the cinema after a year of cinema closures.” The screening also marks the launch of Erika Balsom’s new book ‘Ten Skies’ (Fireflies Press, 2021).
The festival presents four competitions with two juries: the Open City Award, Emerging Filmmaker Award, UK Short Film Award, International Short Film Award. All awards will be announced on 12th September.
The Expanded Realities programme will showcase storytelling at the intersection of art and technology. This year’s collection includes interactive web documentaries, 360 films and virtual reality experiences which will immerse the audience in new worlds. Antonia Forster LGBTQ+ VR Museum is a virtual reality museum showcasing the objects, stories and artwork of the LGBTQ+ community, accompanied by their own narration. Ilios, co-directed by Marcel Karnapke and Mika Johnson, meditates on the state of flux we are all living in today. Nim Shapira’s immersive-interactive VR docufiction Bystanding: The Feingold Syndromeexplores the drowning and rescue of Israeli rowing-champion Jasmine Feingold. Skeleton Conductor XR Art by Hanna Pajala-Assefa is an inclusive, individual virtual reality (VR) art experience where free bodily expression takes the user into a space of kinesthetic composition and active awareness of oneself. DEEP, a meditative virtual reality experience controlled by breathing from Owen Harris and Niki Smit, helps to draw you deeper into a relaxed and meditative state.
The festival’s 360 Cinema selection will screen a selection of immersive films “that explore our connection to the earth, safe spaces for subcultures, familial memories, and rapid urbanisation.” The interactive installation pieces will tell stories in non-traditional formats. This includes two interactive web-docs that travel across space, time, place and memory. UCL Showcase of work from students, staff and alumni of University College London will feature projects from faculties across UCL where XR is being implemented in fields including computer science, architecture, art and medicine.
Within the festivals talks and workshops, featured filmmakers including Luke Fowler, Onyeka Igwe, Hope Strickland and Alia Syed will lead masterclasses and workshops at the Festival Hub. The festival’s Talks programme has been devised in collaboration with organisations including LUX, not/nowhere, the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Slade School of Fine Arts, which celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2021/2022.
Open City Documentary Festival will also present the first UK retrospective of work by German filmmaker Renate Sami, a tribute to Haneda Sumiko and a presentation of short films by legendary Mexican avant-garde filmmaker Rubén Gámez.
