Keeping it reel: a look behind London’s independent cinema scene
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to London
At the dawn of cinema in the late 19th century, most films were just single shots that were only a few minutes long. It was up to cinema exhibitors to mix and match different films to compose a screening — a curatorial montage that was at the heart of the earliest cinema experience.
What does it mean to go to the cinema today, more than a century later? At a screening of Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), a film that observes people watching a film in a soon-to-be-shuttered Taipei cinema, I couldn’t help but look around at everyone else fidgeting, variously captivated and agonised by Tsai’s characteristic long shots and spare dialogue. I was hyper-aware of how attuned we are to the slightest sounds — a cough, a fizzy drink cracking open, while watching the characters do the same, caught in a moment of suspension together. I love the movies — not only what’s on screen, but the collective response, the comforts and the awkwardness offered by my fellow viewers.
Since we have returned to the cinema post-pandemic, there seems to be a surging demand for the experimentation offered by independent cinemas. Audiences are flocking: earlier this year, the ICA’s new Off-Circuit series, screening film-festival movies that have not yet received UK distribution, and the Barbican’s Artists in Residence season exploring how artists lived in London were both sold out.
We laud art curators for their role in setting the contemporary art scene. But we don’t often credit the work of cinema curators, bringing to the screen historic treasures gathering dust in the archives or emerging innovative voices from around the globe, offering new modes of seeing and interacting with the moving image. Below, we speak to the curators at four pioneering London cinemas ahead of their exciting new programmes.
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
Good for: Experimental films in central London and a £5 Negroni
Not so good for: Classic snacks (no popcorn)
FYI: The ICA offers Blue membership (half-price tickets for under-26s for £20 a year) and Red membership (unlimited free entry to screenings and exhibitions for £240 a year)
Coming up: A selection of contemporary Portuguese cinema until September. The UK release of Argentine filmmaker Matías Piñeiro’s Tú me abrasas (You Burn Me) opens on 6 June
The ICA has been known for its radical programming from its inception as an arts centre in April 1968, a symbolic year of revolutionary protests across the world. Just a trot away from Buckingham Palace, the ICA has been an unexpected neighbour in many ways — Derek Jarman once took up unofficial residence, and punk gigs would blare into the night while the cinema showed avant-garde films. The ICA screened Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom (1975) in the UK, even though it had been banned by the British Board of Film Classification. It also distributed east Asian films in the 1980s and ’90s, introducing the likes of Edward Yang and Takeshi Kitano. Curator Nicolas Raffin says: “The ICA not only distributed the films, they literally brought that film culture here.” You can watch many of these treasures at Celluloid Sundays, which screen the institute’s original archival film prints. A few months ago, I caught Shusuke Kaneko’s Summer Vacation 1999 (1988).
Recently, Raffin’s team developed the Off-Circuit programme, which “shows amazing films from festivals that never reach our screens because they are deemed too fragile for commercial viability”, says Raffin. It has also collaborated with grassroots film collectives such as Brixton Community Cinema and Sine Screen, bringing in more diverse audiences.
The ICA has garnered a loyal following who trust its curators to bring them something different. For instance, as part of Off-Circuit, it recently sold out 10 days straight of a three-hour Vietnamese film, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023). “If we manage to sustain that, then we are actually emancipating ourselves from the Hollywood circuit,” says Raffin.
Raffin, who grew up in France with its rich cinematic heritage, says: “You can’t develop a film culture without a diversity of films showing constantly. Cinema needs to be casual so you can walk in and find something to watch.” With its two screens, the ICA is a popular haunt for cinephiles and also for those who happen to wander in, with attendees ranging from younger esoteric types to seasoned regulars. One renowned artist in particular sits in the front row for every Q+A. One time, I accidentally sat in her place and she shot me a withering glance.
Close-Up Film Centre
97 Sclater Street, London E1 6HR
Good for: A bar with atmosphere and books to browse pre-screening
Not so food for: Large groups
FYI: You can rent DVDs and books with a membership
Coming up: A screening of Pasolini’s The Gospel According to Matthew on May 31 as part of Close-Up’s Histoire (s) du Cinéma series
Located in Shoreditch just off Brick Lane, Close-Up is a more recently established cultural gem. It was established by Damien Sanville in 2005, originally as a video rental shop before converting to an intimate cinema in 2015 — a single screen with 40 seats. The week before opening night, the screen was still not installed; the team did it over four sleepless days just in time for an 8pm premiere (having missed its 6pm opening). The screening of Opening Night (1977) by John Cassavetes was full, on the hottest day of the year: “Dripping in sweat for our first event,” Sanville laughs.
Recently, Sanville was surprised by the reception of Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (1970) and Days of Heaven (1978) by Terrence Malick, which had flopped a few years ago at Close-Up. “We had three sellout screenings,” Sanville says. “The audience has shifted. We have become known by the kids and they are rediscovering our classics.” Now the cinema shows a selection of art-house and experimental films to a mixed crowd of young cinephiles, academics and older east London regulars.
Close-Up curates historic programmes too. It asked Julian Ross, the co-programmer of Doc Fortnight at MoMA in New York, to create “Theatre Scorpio: Japanese Independent and Experimental Cinema of the 1960s”, which celebrated the work of an underground art space in Tokyo. “It was the European premiere of most of these incredible avant-garde Japanese films,” Sanville says. Close-Up also invited the Japanese experimental director Katsu Kanai to the UK for the first time to introduce his Smiling Milky Way trilogy.
Not only a cinema, Close-Up also has an exhaustive library full of films for rental, archival Vertigo magazine prints and books about cinema, providing access beyond just their screen.
Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
Good for: A pre-film tipple at the Martini Bar
Not so good for: People looking for an intimate space
FYI: There are Parent and Baby, Senior Community and, for neurodiverse audiences, Relaxed screenings
Coming up: A special screening of Peruvian female director María Barea’s 1990s films exploring migrant domestic labour on June 3; A season of “Queer ’80s” films following the success of last year’s “Queer ’90s” (June 5–26)
The beloved brutalist Barbican is known for its vibrant art and theatre spaces alongside its three cinemas — the grand Cinema One in the main building, and two more intimate screens on Beech Street — showing a mix of current releases alongside more under-the-radar works. The crowd is equally eclectic: parents and their children, university students, artists and loyal locals. At one Q+A, the audience erupted into disagreements and discussions in a truly intergenerational exchange.
At the beginning of this year, the Barbican’s Artists in Residence programme addressed questions of how artists have historically lived in London, which feels fitting during London’s rental crisis. The films varied between documentaries about the history of east London’s Beck Road, which has long attracted artists, to those exploring art patronage in the 20th century. Matthew Barrington, one of the Barbican’s curators, says: “Film curation should be striving to produce original knowledge, to questions of how we live now.”
The Barbican has consistently been dedicated to showing archival works that have rarely been seen in the UK. Matthew Barrington has curated many invigorating seasons, including retrospectives of Filipino New Wave auteur Kidlat Tahimik, and a more recent programme that brought a film by the late African-American documentarian St Clair Bourne to the UK for the first time. Barrington often brings political archival works from global cinema to the London screen, drawing unexpected connections across history.
Alongside its regular screenings, the Barbican has development programmes for emerging film curators, some of whom have founded their own grassroots collectives. Earlier this year, they put on everything from a selection of experimental short films by women in Yugoslavia from 1960 to 1990 to the work of emerging neurodiverse filmmakers.
Prince Charles Cinema
7 Leicester Place, London WC2H 7BY
Good for: Close to Chinatown
Not so good for: An intimate evening
FYI: The Prince Charles hosts movie marathons, triple bills and singalongs
Coming up: Take your pick — where else in London might you find the anarchic 1960s Czech comedy Daisies shown on the same evening as a 20th-anniversary screening of Shark Tale and the definitive edition of Michael Mann’s Heat (all on June 3)?
Just off Leicester Square, the Prince Charles Cinema is a welcome respite from the heaving crowds. I ask Paul Vickery, head programmer for the past 16 years, about its salacious history as a porn variety theatre: “Actually, people thought we were a porn theatre, but that’s only because we showed some arty European films with nudity,” says Vickery, laughing. The Prince Charles is a haven in central London — pop in any afternoon or evening and there will always be something to pique your interest. Vickery has always been interested in programming films that are nostalgic to viewers, including the works of John Hughes and 1990s classics. Now, with a younger Gen-Z audience flocking in, he has been asking his team what they watched growing up, leading to screenings of the Scooby Doo movies and the Twilight Saga.
In the 1990s, the cinema was showing mostly second runs at a reduced price. But as time went on, Vickery says, “The popularity of the repertory program of canonical classics grew and engulfed more of what we were doing.” The Prince Charles is not afraid to mix and match, programming, say, the 2008 teen comedy Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging alongside work by the late Belgian film director Chantal Akerman. This sits beside more interactive events such as its singalong with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which encourages more rambunctious fun. The classic Sound of Music singalong is perhaps a bit more family-friendly than Dirty Dancing, where you can expect a rowdy crowd and plentiful drinks in tow.
Vickery concludes: “We are a cinema for everyone. There’s no snobbiness. When I was younger, I used to go to the Curzon because I felt like the BFI was beyond me. For audiences now, I don’t want them to feel like they need to do their homework.”
What’s your favourite independent cinema in London? Tell us in the comments below. And follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter
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