The 2025 Open City Documentary Festival is back at the beginning of May: this is our guide on 10 movies to watch, from world premieres to retrospectives.
The Open City Documentary Festival is back for its 15th edition on 6-11 May, 2025 in multiple venues across London. The film festival will feature 101 movies overall from 21 different countries; this includes 5 World premieres and multiple expanded realities exhibitions, talks and special projects during the festival run. These are 10 films to watch for the 2025 edition of the festival that documentary enthusiasts are bound to find interesting and fascinating.
1. A Vampire Film
Directed by Quin Dao in 2016, A Vampire Film will be screened at the Open City Documentary Festival. Described as a work that transcends celluloid, screen, and the social milieu of post-socialist China, the documentary interrogates the very nature of cinema. The movie is a vampire film, as evident from the title, shot in 16mm and is often regarded as one of the director’s most enigmatic films.
2. Henry Fonda for President
As the name suggests, Henry Fonda for President is an essay film on the actor Henry Fonda, best known for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln and one of the jurors in Twelve Angry Men (1957). The documentary suggests a history of the United States through the life and career of the actor and will be a directorial debut for the director, Alexander Horwarth.
3. Notes From Brook House
Directed by Alex Nevill, Notes From Brook House portrays fragments of stories and words passed from one person or another. Brook House is a large immigration centre on the outskirts of London, where this documentary is set as a film that aims to share stories from this place. Therefore, it examines migration, control, and the space between perception and reality.
4. Palestine Will Win
Jean Pierre Olivier De Sardan’s Palestine Will Win was long believed to be lost and was only rediscovered recently, allowing the Open City Documentary Festival to host one of the first public screenings of this documentary. The film offers an opportunity to reflect on the nature of solidarity and militancy in cinema today and to learn more about the Palestinian liberation struggle for audiences who might be unfamiliar with it.
5. Postpartum Film
Directed by Sally Lawton, Postpartum Film is a story of ancestry and family. In this documentary, the filmmaker combines elements of life from before and after giving birth while reflecting on the discontinuity of the adult world and childhood. It is a poignant portrayal of the duration and the subjective perception of the passage of time.
6. Sanrizuka – Notes on Struggles
As the title suggests, Sanrizuka – Notes on Struggles is set in the rural area of Sanrizuka in Japan. There, a community of farmers and grassroots organisations joined in resistance to preserve their territory and avoid the construction of a new airport there. This programme will explore Sanrizuka as an area by using documentaries and archival footage spanning around 40 years. This will also include footage shot between 1968 and 1977 by Ogawa Productions, a collective of filmmakers who focused on depicting this local struggle.
7. Siticulosa
Siticulosa, the opening film of the Open City Documentary Film Festival, will have its UK Premiere on 6 May 2025. The movie is about the international trafficking of looted antiquities, and is based on the multidisciplinary research conducted by the artist to analyse the relationship between archaeology, geology, and agriculture in Puglia. Siticulosa is a companion to Maeve Brennan’s previous film, An Excavation (2022), which touches on similar topics but with a focus on the Geneva Freeport and the Italian vases from 4th century BCE that were discovered there.
8. The Clock, or: 89 Minutes of “Free Time”
Curated by Alexander Horwath, The Clock, or: 89 Minutes of “Free Time” is a programme of works that come from the Australian Film Museum. Between elements of the surreal and childlike moments, this collection will attempt to tell a story of the 20th century through multiple cinematic temporalities. It will also serve as an indirect tribute to Amos Vogel, born in Vienna and the founder of Cinema 16.
9. The Land of Common Disgrace
Described as a participatory project, The Land of Common Disgrace is devised by Saeed Taji Farouky and is part of the workshop and special events section of the Open City Documentary Festival. It is a public documentary that everyone can get involved in about the silencing of Palestinian protests in the UK. Through participants building a series of film sets together, this project aims to create a collective act of resistance against the arrest and prosecution of pro-Palestinian supporters.
10. Voices From Gaza
Directed by Antonia Cacci and Mysoon Pachachi in 1989, Voices from Gaza is part of the special screening section of the Open City Documentary Festival. This film represents cinema as an act of resistance in today’s world, as a cultural response in a time of political turmoil. It is the first feature-length documentary to be made about the uprising in Gaza in 1987 and features Gazan men, women, and children who reflect on their own experiences. With the aim of making as large an impression as possible in the film community in London, it will represent a groundbreaking addition to this year’s programme.
Overall, the 2025 Open City Documentary Festival will feature an impressively large and varied body of work. From contemporary to historical work, the festival includes world premieres, exclusive screenings, and retrospective presentations. This carries forward the project’s mission of using the film festival as both a collaborative space and film school with its academic talks and partnership with UCL.
The Open City Documentary Festival will take place on 6-11 May, 2025 in London: check the official website for the full lineup!
