Joe Andreyev

Jellied Reels programmer at The Castle Cinema

Favourite 2025 Releases

Flow
Vermiglio
Black Bag
The Summer with Carmen
Perfumed with Mint 
The Other Way Around
Blue Moon
Oslo Stories Trilogy: Dreams Love Sex
Megadoc

First Watches and Discoveries

Lady (London Film Festival) Rolling Papers (London Baltic Film Festival) The Visitor (Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival) Think of England (Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival) Kill the Jockey (London Spanish Film Festival)

Favourite Screening

Started the year well with Lost Reel’s Last Days of Disco encore screening at the ICA – room full of laughs! Big year (and big shouts to Nicolas and Daniel) at the ICA – amongst everything fantastic: Celine and Julie Go Boating = sublime, Theo Angelopoulos season = sublime, Afternoons of Solitude = sublime. A very special mention to the knockout intro from il maestro Toni Servillo for La Grazia at LFF

Sophie Ansell

Artist/Filmmaker

Favourite 2025 Releases

Sinners

Weapons

28 Years Later

First Watches and Discoveries

‘The Wicked Lady’, a totally unhinged Gainsborough picture I stumbled on at the BFI’s melodrama season. Sooo enjoyable to watch this beautifully shot and styled woman cause trouble and destroy lives. The plot is insane. Feels genuinely scandalous.

I loved watching more of Stephanie Rothman’s subversive exploitation films at the Barbican season, curated by Isabel Moir and Selina Robertson.

I indulged my melancholy tendencies at Zodiac Film Club’s Summertime Sadness season, and was rewarded with ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ – bratty perfection imo.

‘If toxic air is a monument to slavery, how do we take it down?’ at the Wellcome Collection exhibition, ‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’. I watched it through twice, mesmerised by Forensic Architecture’s precision.

Favourite Screening

‘Hamnet’ at LFF because Chloé Zhao is a powerful witch who cast a spell over the Royal Festival Hall and had everyone doing breathing exercises. Would join her cult.

Graeme Arnfield

Filmmaker

Favourite 2025 Releases

Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, ICA)
El Almendral (Phillipe Parreno, Pilar Corrias)
Empty Alcove/Rotting Figure (Dan Guthrie, Chisenhale)
Final Destination: Bloodlines (Zach Lipovsky & Adam Stein, Peckhamplex)
The Glass Booth (Jenny Brady, File)
Morning Circle (Basma al-Sharif, LFF)
Murderers Bar (Lucy Raven, Barbican)
Neither Fish Nor Fowl (Clara Helbig, Goldsmiths)
Weapons (Zach Creeger, Peckhamplex)
With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari, LFF)

First Watches and Discoveries

The Ear (Karel Kachyňa, 1979, BFI)
Lightning Over Braddock: A Dustbowl Fantasy (Tony Buba, 1988, The Nickel)
The Mask (Johan Van Der Jeuken, 1989, Open City Documentary Festival)
Our Mother’s House (Jack Clayton, 1967, Close-Up)
Poison for the Fairies (Carlos Enrique Taboada, 1984, File)
Record of War (Corrado D’Errico, Vladimir Yeshurin & Boris Zeitlin, 1936, Barbican)
The Savage Eye (Ben Maddow, Sidney Meyers, Joseph Strick, 1959, Goldsmiths Film Club)
Shockproof (Douglas Sirk, 1949, Regent Street – Monday Matinee)
Winter Kept Us Warm (David Secter, 1965, Close-Up)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957, Prince Charles – for Legal Thriller Film Club on the day Lynch died)

Favourite Screening

The best two cinematic experiences of the year are the camera slowly tracking the rushing water as it fills the barren riverbed in Lucy Raven’s “Murderers Bar” – installed at the Barbican for Raven’s “Rounds” show. And seeing “Final Destination: Bloodlines” at Peckhamplex when that annoying kid gets squashed by the piano – both results of perfect (cinematic) construction

Nicole Atkinson

PhD researcher, writer, and curator of artists’ moving image on Channel 4, 1982-1992 at LUX and Birkbeck

Favourite 2025 Releases

1) Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor, USA)
2) The Stranger (François Ozon, France)
3) Pillion (Harry Lighton, UK)
4) Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK)
5) I’m Still Here (Walter Salles, Brazil)
6) Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia)
7) Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier, Norway)
8) Die My Love (Lynne Ramsay, USA)
9) Landmarks (Lucrecia Martel, Argentina)
10) No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook, South Korea)

First Watches and Discoveries

1) Comizi d’amore (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964, Italy)
2) The Decameron (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1971, Italy)
3) No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman, 2015, France/Belgium)
4) London (Patrick Keiller, 1994, UK)
5) Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997, Iran)
6) Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977, Germany)
7) Projections (Derek Jarman, 1993, UK)

A big year for Pasolini discoveries! (inspired by a trip to Italy to present my research on archives)

Favourite Screening

Self indulgent sorry(!) but the final night of my curated season Echoes from the Static and filling a basement of people to watch The Black Tower which was followed by a Q&A with John Smith and myself where we spoke about all the complaints the film received when it was screened on Channel 4 in 1988.

Erika Balsom

Reader in film studies at King’s College London

Favourite 2025 Releases

Alphabetically –
Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)
Babygirl (Halina Reijn)
Bombay Tilts Down (CAMP)
Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze)
The Ice Tower (Lucile Hadzihalilovic)
Little Boy (James Benning)
Mare’s Nest (Ben Rivers)
Sirat (Oliver Laxe)
Through a Mirror Darkly (Naeem Mohaiemen)
With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari)

First Watches and Discoveries

In no particular order—

The Memory of Justice (Marcel Ophüls), introduced by Philippe Sands, ICA

Double bill of Fade In (Jud Taylor/Allen Smithee) and Barbara Loden and Joan Micklin Silver’s educational films, part of “Wanda and Beyond: The World of Barbara Loden), BFI Southbank

Winter Kept Us Warm (David Secter), Cinema Ritrovato

Hanno cambiato faccia (Corrado Farina), Cinema Ritrovato

Brief Crossing (Catherine Breillat), ok.ru

Digital restoration of TEN SKIES (James Benning), Image Forum

Tally Brown, New York (Rosa von Praunheim), YouTube

Female Student Guerrilla (Adachi Masao), Vimeo La Criatura (Julio Peña), introduced by Lucile Hazihalilovic at the Liberated Film Club, Close Up

Doomed Love (Manoel de Oliveira), ICA

Favourite Screening

No cinematic experience has brought me as much joy this year as attending the Liberated Film Club at Close Up, organised by Stanley Schtinter. I haven’t made it to them all, but most — and John Smith, Oliver Bancroft, Sukdev Sandhu, Lucile Hazihalilovic programmed surprise screenings I will never forget. A glimpse of utopia.

Matthew Barrington

Curator at Barbcian Centre

Favourite 2025 Releases

Chris Harris B/W and Speaking in Tongues

First Watches and Discoveries

The Case of the Elevator Duck, Joan Micklin Silver, 1973 and The Fur Coat Club,
Joan Micklin Silver, 1973 screening at the BFI as part of the Barbara Loden programme and Stanley Schtinters Liberated Film Club both come to mind.

Arta Barzanji

Filmmaker, critic, curator and lecturer

Favourite 2025 Releases

Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze, 2025)
With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari, 2025)
Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, 2024)
Dracula (Radu Jude, 2025)
Landmarks (Lucrecia Martel, 2025)
The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt, 2025)
The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025)
Fiume o morte! (Igor Bezinović, 2025)
Lover, Lovers, Loving, Love (Jodie Mack, 2025)
Carol & Joy (Nathan Silver, 2025)

First Watches and Discoveries

Va Savoir + (Jacques Rivette, 2001)
Cheyenne Autumn (John Ford, 1964)
Man of the West (Anthony Mann, 1958) 
Near Orouët (Jacques Rozier, 1971)
Gentleman Jim (Raoul Walsh, 1942) 
The Damned (Luchino Visconti, 1969)
The House of Mirth (Terence Davies, 2000)
Till We Meet Again (Frank Borzage, 1944)
Love Affair(s) (Emmanuel Mouret, 2020)
Shanghai Blues (Tsui Hark, 1984)

Favourite Screening

The Salvation Hunters (1925) ‘One Hundred Years Ago: 1925’ Introduction by Janet Bergstrom Live music by the Dreamscope Trio 35 mm 24 Jun 2025, Piazzetta Pier Paolo Pasolini, Il Cinema Ritrovato

Night and Fog (1956) + Moonfleet (1955) ‘Serge Daney and the Promise of Cinema’ Introduction by Pierre Eugène DCP 29 Aug 2025, Cinema 1, ICA

Wavelength (1967) + So Is This (1982) ‘In Focus: Michael Snow’ Introduction by Daniel (from Dream of Light) 16 mm 1 Feb 2025, Cinema 1, ICA

The Wild Palms (1966/1967/2025) ‘Jean-Luc Godard: Unmade and Abandoned’ Introduction by Michael Witt 35 mm 25 Nov 2025, Cinema 1, ICA

Les berceaux (1931) + Mor’vran, la mer des corbeaux (1930) + L’Or des mers (1931) + Le tempestaire (1947) ‘Retrospektive Jean Epstein’ Introduction by Jurij Meden 35 mm 18 Oct 2025, Filmmuseum, Viennale

L’Argent (1983) ‘Being in Time: The Cinema of Angela Schanelec’ DCP 28 Sep 2025, Cinema 1, ICA

Out 1: Noli me tangere (1971) ‘Spectres: The Cinema of Jacques Rivette’ Introduction by Daniel Turner DCP 8-9 Mar 2025, Cinema 1, ICA

Emily Jisoo Bowles

freelance film critic and a programmer at Queer East festival

Favourite 2025 Releases

Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)
Kontinental ’25 (Radu Jude)
I Only Rest in the Storm (Pedro Pinho)
Misericordia (Alan Giuraudie)
The Shrouds (David Cronenberg)
By the Stream ((Hong Sangsoo)
Underground (Kaori Oda)

First Watches and Discoveries

The Devil Probably (1977, Robert Bresson)
La Ronde (1950, Max Ophüls)
Sanrizuka – Peasants of the Second Fortress (1971, Ogawa Productions)
Romance (1999, Catherine Breillat)
Marseille (2004, Angela Schanelec)
Duelle (1976, Jacques Rivette)
Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (1989, Bae Yong-Kyun)
Spacked Out (2000, Lawrence Ah Mon)

Favourite Screening

Turang (1957) at IFFR 2025

Ty Chapman

Curator at Camp Classics

Favourite 2025 Releases

Queerpanorama
Night Stage
The Ugly Stepsister 
Final Destination Bloodlines
Lesbian Space Princess
Pillion
Alpha

First Watches and Discoveries

Girl 6 (1996) D.E.B.S. (2003) Gentleman Broncos (2009) Hackers (1995) Frisk (1995)

Favourite Screening

Camp Classics Presents: Girl 6

María Palacios Cruz

Open City Documentary Festival Director and one fourth of The Machine That Kills Bad People

Favourite 2025 Releases

Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze)
The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
In the Manner of Smoke (Armand Yervant Tufenkian)
Morgenkreis (Basma Alsharif)
Being John Smith (John Smith)
Bogancloch (Ben Rivers)

First Watches and Discoveries

The Arch (T’ang Shushuen, 1968) – seen at the BFI in the context of the melodrama season. I remember how extraordinary Martin Arnold’s and Peter Tscherkassky’s reworkings of Hollywood dramas seemed to us, young experimental film enthusiasts, in the early 2000s. But how much more extraordinary it is to see a narrative film subjecting itself to that same kind of treatment, bringing to the surface the compulsions, desires and frustrations that often remain repressed in classical melodrama. And in 1968!

Nightshift (Robina Rose, 1981) – Robina Rose passed away earlier this year and couldn’t attend the London premiere of the restoration of Nightshift. My good friend, archivist and curator Charlotte Procter spent years working with Robina and many others in order to bring this remarkable film back into circulation.

The Year of the Cannibals (Liliana Cavani, 1969) – one of the (many) great things about programming The Machine That Kills Bad People with Erika Balsom, Beatrice Gibson and Ben Rivers is that I get to discover so many amazing films. We showed this one in January, at Erika’s and Beatrice’s suggestion, and I have kept on thinking about how it reflects so much of the current political moment and the creeping in of fascism.

The Chelsea Girls (Andy Warhol, 1966) – seen at the BFI as part of the Barbara Loden season curated by the one and only Elena Gorfinkel. Warhol’s work feels inevitably familiar, and I had of course seen excerpts of the Chelsea Girls in countless documentaries, but this was the first time that I was able to watch, and experience, the actual film.

True Stories (David Byrne, 1986) – this one feels a bit like cheating as I watched it at home but I don’t get to go to the cinema as often as I would like!

Favourite Screening

The Laura Mulvey symposium at the BFI Southbank (November 2025): What a privilege to have been part of the Mulvey symposium day at the BFI, thinking through her practice together with her and an inspiring group of people – some of the film thinkers I most admire.

As The Machine That Kills Bad People slowly draws to a close – we have decided to end the series in June after 8 years – every screening feels special and poignant in different ways. Our November screening, which paired Mira Nair’s India Cabaret with Gunvor Nelson’s Take Off was particularly joyous – a celebration of sorts of Nair’s son’s (Zohran Mamdani) victory in the New York mayoral election the previous day.

Kareyni Davis

Director of Backronym Films

Favourite 2025 Releases

Weapons
Frankenstein
28 Years Later
The Secret Agent
Exit 8
Superman

First Watches and Discoveries

Beloved
Starship Troopers
Tales From The Hood
Brown Sugar
Run Lola Run
Ghost Dog
Mary & Max
The Iron Giant
Fruitvale Station

Favourite Screening

The Running Man premiere at Odeon Leicester Square AND Mars Express at Picturehouse Central

Teodosia Dobriyanova

Programmer, New East Cinema

Favourite 2025 Releases

1. Sentimental Value
2. One Battle After Another
3. Hamnet
4. Measures for a Funeral
5. Romeria
6. Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day
7. Flow
8. Sleepless City
9. The Tale of Silvan
10. Lowland Kids

First Watches and Discoveries

1. The Birck and the Mirror
2. Jacquot de Nantes
3. Les Rendez-vous d’Anna
4. Secretary
5. You Have to Come and See It (special shout out to Jellies Reels for their spring themed double bill with Otar Iosseliani’s April)

Favourite Screening

It’s a Wonderful Life at Prince Charles Cinema

Sylvie Dumont

Programmer at LSFF, Atlas Cinema; Operations Manager at Rio Cinema

Favourite 2025 Releases

No Other Land was the only new release that really had an impact on me this year. It is imperative that everybody watch it.

First Watches and Discoveries

Repertory is my bag so I have a lot more to say here: SEVERAL fresh restorations this year absolutely floored me, the best being Days and Nights in the Forest (Satyajit Ray 1970), watched at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, for its warmth and humour and its massive influence on today’s independent auteurs. Special mentions also go out to the newly restored first installation of Penelophe Spheeris’ DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION (1981) for reminding us how fucked up punks actually were, and to a lost John Ford film literally rediscovered in a warehouse in Chile last year, screened for the first time in 100 years at CineRit. Discoveries / first watches included Jeanne Dielman (shamefully!), Les Adventures de Rossette (Rohmer 1983), and Saeed Taji Farouky’s 2004 debut I See The Stars At Noon (which we later screened at Atlas with a wonderful Q&A).

Favourite Screening

Bologna, Piazza Maggiore, outdoor screening of SHOLAY (Ramesh Sippy 1975) to about 2000 attendees who couldn’t stop shouting and clapping <3

Liam Dunn

Programmer at Distorted Frame

Favourite 2025 Releases

Redux Redux
Sirat
Sinners
Nickel Boys
It Was Just an Accident
28 Years Later
Weapons
The Long Walk
Bugonia
Eddington

First Watches and Discoveries

Jeanne Dielman
Twilight Samurai
Death in Venice
The Gleaners and I
Mermaid Legend
3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Night of the Juggler
Rap World
The Face of Another
A Different Man

Favourite Screening

Night of the Juggler at The Nickel Cinema. A film that was almost lost to time, more than lived up to it’s legendary status. And watching it in the best little cinema in London was a real treat.

Rógan Graham

Film Programmer @ BFI

Favourite 2025 Releases

Dry Leaf
The Secret Agent
It Was Just an Accident
Rose of Nevada
Sorry, Baby
Sentimental Value
A Want in Her
The Ban (short)
Hedda
Die My Love

First Watches and Discoveries

Black is… Black Ain’t
The Piano Teacher
Nationality: Immigrant
The Working Girls
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean

Favourite Screening

The screening I hosted (sorry!) of Madonna’s Truth or Dare documentary at the prince charles cinema, on 35mm with Norwegian subtitles and a recorded introduction by Sydney Urbanek

Laura Hague

Programmer of the Fruits of Her Labour film season at the Rio

Favourite 2025 Releases

Pee Wee as Himself
On Falling
Friendship
Maspalomas
Final Destination Bloodlines
Pillion
Weapons
Frankenstein
Bad Apples
The Ugly Stepsister

First Watches and Discoveries

The Gleaners and I
Happiness
Supermarket Woman
Magic
Ticket of No Return
3 Women

Favourite Screening

All of the NFTS Curation student screenings!! Although is that cheating? Excluding NFTS screenings, the Offbeat Folk Film Festival at the Mildmay Club in May was so so fun

Yuriko Hamaguchi

Independent Film Programmer / Curator of In the Realm of Acting: Performance On and Off Screen

Favourite 2025 Releases

Deaf, Flow, Good One, Happyend, Nickel Boys, No Other Choice, On Falling, Rose of Nevada, Sentimental Value, and The Voice of Hind Rajab

First Watches and Discoveries

Barry Lyndon (50th Anniversary 4K Restoration), Black Orpheus, Bred and Born, Calamity, Compensation, Golden Eighties, Mother India, Night Tide, Pandora’s Box, To Sleep So as to Dream (on 16mm), Winter Kept Us Warm, and The Working Girls

Favourite Screening

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me + mystery shorts at the Rio Cinema, programmed by Molly Miles

Hope Hopkinson

Marketing Manager at Picturehouse Cinemas, accessible programmer, podcaster and moderator.

Favourite 2025 Releases

Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)
The End (Joshua Oppenheimer)
Caught By The Tides (Jia Zhangke)
Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)
Blue Heron (Sophy Romvari)
The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Good One (India Donaldson)
Pavements (Alex Ross Perry)
Sound of Falling (Mascha Schilinski)
Rose of Nevada (Mark Jenkin)

First Watches and Discoveries

Blue Heron (2025, Sophy Romvari)
The Secret Agent (2025, Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Out 1 (1971, Jacques Rivette)
Midnight (1939, Mitchell Leisen)
35 Shots of Rum (2008, Claire Denis)
The Seventh Continent (1989, Michael Haneke)
The Cremator (1969, Juraj Herz)
Vengeance Is Mine (1984, Michael Roemer)
La Captive (2000, Chantal Ackerman)
Crooklyn (1994, Spike Lee)

Favourite Screening

ICA’s January Whit Stillman retrospective + Q&A, and their Out 1 weekender

The PCC’s screening of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me the weekend of David Lynch’s passing

Funeral Parade of Roses’ screening of Altman’s Come Back To The 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

The Lexi’s Summer Nights in Brazil screening of Central Station and afterparty

The BFI’s Ackerman season at large, but especially the Celine Sciamma talk that turned into a surprise screening of her new short

Sold-out Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging in Picturehouse Central’s Screen 1

(Plug!) My own relaxed screening of Cronenberg’s The Shrouds followed by an hour-long in-screen discussion with friends and strangers about disability

Georgia Hunter

Siren Screen

Favourite 2025 Releases

1. Happened
2. Die My Love
3. The Ice tower
4. Sorry, Baby
5. Motel Destino
6. Frankenstein
7. Bugonia
8. Mickey 17
9. Pillion
10. Ocean with David Attenborough

First Watches and Discoveries

1. Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (1972, Robert J. Kaplan)
2. The Wiz (1978, Sidney Lumet)
3. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962, Robert Aldrich)
4. Moonstruck (1987, Norman Jewison)
5. A Kind of Testament (2023, Stephen Vuillemin)
6. Before Sunrise (1995, Richard Linklater)
7. Microcosmos (1996, Claude Nuridsany & Marie Pérennou)
8. Coming Out (2020, Cressa Maeve Áine)
9. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023, Ariane Louis-Seize)
10. Femme (2023, Sam H. Freeman & Ng Choon Ping)

Favourite Screening

Surprise 35mm screening of Tetsuo II: Body Hammer at the ICA

Ellisha Izumi

Freelance film historian, denpa diary and She Wrote, He Directed: The Films of Eleanor and Frank Perry

Favourite 2025 Releases

Twinless,
Edhi Alice: REVERSE,
Sorry, Baby,
It Was Just an Accident,
Bel Ami,
Misericordia,
The Brutalist,
My Sunshine,
One Battle After Another,
Black Bag,

First Watches and Discoveries

Deep End (dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970)
The Gorge (dir. Christopher Morahan, 1968)
Double Suicide (dir. Masahiro Shinoda, 1969) – Select Japan at The Garden Cinema
D.E.B.S (dir. Angela Robinson, 2004)
Camp Hollywood (dir. Steve Markle, 2004)
The Barber of Stamford Hill (dir. Casper Wrede, 1963)
The Fall of Otrar (Ardak Amirkulov, 1991) – Cinema Rediscovered at the Bristol Megascreen

Favourite Screening

Last Summer (dir. Frank Perry, 1969) in 35mm at The BFI Film on Film Festival, introduced by Lost Reels and Mark Jenkin.

Long thought to be lost it was amazing to see the film on the big screen and experience the film’s dark descent with a sold out audience. Made even more special that I managed to get my ticket in the last minute returns queue!

Rebecka Ohrstrom Kann

I run the newsletter Seeing Further

Favourite 2025 Releases

(unfortunately i’m quite terrible at making it to new releases so here are my top 5)
BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions, Kahlil Joseph
Take Out, Sean Baker and Tsou Shih-Ching
The Encampments, Michael T Workman and Kei Pritsker
Shifty, Adam Curtis
Kontinental ’25, Radu Jude

First Watches and Discoveries

(in no particular order)
Marble Ass (1995), Želimir Žilnik
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), Tsai Ming-liang
Ouaga, the Capital of Cinema (2000), Mohamed Challouf
Squat Now While Stocks Last (1974), Sue Hall and John Hopkins
Le 15/8 (1973), Chantal Akerman and Samy Szlingerbaum
Your father was born 100 years old, and so was the Nakba (2017), Razan AlSalah
The Asthenic Syndrome (1989), Kira Muratova
I’m Not Everything I Want to Be (2024), Klára Tasovská
Specialised Technique (2018), Onyeka Igwe
One Way or Another (1974), Sara Gomez

Favourite Screening

Daniel Owusu’s screening of Peter Hutton’s silent films at the Barbican and seeing Howl’s Moving Castle on the roof of the squatted Zvezda Cinema after a swelterning Belgrade summer day.

Hafid Khairoun

Co-ordinator at Maghreb Ciné.

Favourite 2025 Releases

Hamnet – I have read the book and absolutely loved it but have yet to see the film – does that count?! I will get round to watching it, I promise. Of films I’ve watched this year, Sinners is up there.

First Watches and Discoveries

Finally seeing Cinema Paradiso at Tottenham Film. I cannot believe I left it so long to watch a film so many consider a classic, but watching it in a film club surrounded by others and discussing it afterwards reaffirmed why repertory screenings and local film clubs matter.

Favourite Screening

South by South: A View From Tangier at the South London Gallery was a real highlight. An intimate look at Tangier and its residents through a programme of short films made richer by the curatorial framing and discussion around it.

Eleanor Lu

Film Curator

Favourite 2025 Releases

I Only Rest in the Storm by Pedro Pinho
Afternoons of Solitude by Albert Serra
The Shrouds by David Cronenberg
Left-handed Girl by Shih-Ching Tsou

First Watches and Discoveries

Nightshift (1981) by Robina Rose
I bambini e noi: episode 1 (La fatica), episode 2 (Educati e gentili) (1970) by Luigi Comencini
Gaav The Cow (1969) by Dariush Mehrjui
still/here (2000) by Christopher Harris
未婚媽媽 Unmarried Mothers (1980) by Mi-mi Lee
三里塚 辺田部落 Sanrizuka 2: Heta Village (1973) by Ogawa Productions
請指引我睡眠 Guide Me to Sleep (1990) by Qiu Miao-jin

Favourite Screening

The Machine That Kills Bad People: India Cabaret + Take Off at the ICA

Rue Lumbroso & Heather Estradiol

programmers at Transmissions

Favourite 2025 Releases

Rue:
The Shrouds 
After the Hunt
28 Years Later 
Castration Movie Anthology ii: The Best of Both Worlds
Pillion

Heather:
Roofman
Superman
Blue Moon
Eternity
The Ballad of Wallis Island

First Watches and Discoveries
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Something Must Break
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
In My Skin 
Avatar: The Way of Water 
A Brighter Summer Day

Favourite Screening

Probably getting to screen Crash (1996) from a VHS tape that seemed that little bit more worn out during certain scenes.

Antonia Luxem

Artist

Favourite 2025 Releases

East of Noon, Hala Elkoussy
The Ice Tower, Lucile Hadzihalilovic

First Watches and Discoveries

Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men, David Hinton
Kaili Blues, Bi Gan
Chelsea Girls, Andy Warhol (on 16mm)

Favourite Screening

Diego Marcon – programmes at Courtisane

Brogan Morris

Programmer at Distorted Frame

Favourite 2025 Releases

28 Years Later (Danny Boyle)
Eddington (Ari Aster)
Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)
Hard Truths (Mike Leigh)
Harvest (Athina Rachel Tsangari)
Islands (Jan Ole-Gerster)
It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi)
The Naked Gun (Akiva Schaffer)
Souleymane’s Story (Boris Lojkine)
Urchin (Harris Dickinson)

First Watches and Discoveries

A bunch of films by filmmakers whose other work I already loved – La terra trema (Luchino Visconti), The Tsugua Diaries (Miguel Gomes), The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin), The Devil, Probably (Robert Bresson), The Firm (Alan Clarke), Vera Drake (Mike Leigh) – and two so good they made me want to seek out everything else by their makers: The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey) and Danton (Andrzej Wajda). Plus Bad Boys II (Michael Bay), a lunatic example of modern action cinema.

Favourite Screening

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse at BFI Southbank, with intro by Karina Longworth. Longworth’s The Old Man is Still Alive season at the BFI celebrated numerous unloved gems, best of which was Four Horsemen, a queasily lush study on what gives rise to fascism – some seduced by it, others remaining ‘neutral’ while it creeps closer to their door – to be mentioned in the same breath as Visconti’s The Damned.

Tendai Mutambu

Freelance writer, editor, curator, and programmer at European Media Arts Festival

Favourite 2025 Releases

Ish, Imran Perretta
My Father’s Shadow, Akinola Davies Jr
Fugue Notes, Selina Ershadi
Structural Mutiny _ Prince, Arthur Jafa
Lonesome Ghosts, Dan Ward
A Want in Her, Myrid Carten (this is actually Nov 2024 release)
With Hasan in Gaza, Kamal Aljafari
Bouchra, Meriem Bennani
The Center Cannot Hold, Ufuoma Essi
Morgankreiss, Basma Al Sharif

First Watches and Discoveries

Fast Trip, Long Drop, Gregg Bordowitz (1994)
they shoot horses, Phil Collins (2004)
Nightshift, Robina Rose (1981)
Personal Problems, Bill Gunn (1980)
Rage and Desire, Ruppert Gabriel (1992)
Screen Test [ST157]: Peter Hujar, Andy Warhol (1964)
Autoicon, Donald Rodney (1997-2000) (demonstration by Gary Stewart and Mike Phillips)
Three Songs on Pain, Time and Light, Black Audio Film Collective (1995)
La robe envolée, Myriam Mihindou (2008-2009)
Plantation, Maud Sulter (1995)
Punishment Park, Peter Watkins (1971)
A Māori Dragon Story, Lisa Reihana (1995)
Coma, Betrand Bonello (2023)
Free to Choose, Bahar Noorizadeh (2023)
An Asian Ghost Story, Bo Wang (2023)
Lis Rhodes, Light Music (1975)
Pierrot Le Fou, Godard (1965)
Este es mi reino, Carlos Reygadas (2010)
Cartographer, Cetus Kuo Chin-Yun (2023)
Daydream Therapy, Bernard Nicolas (1977)
The Conch, Abdulkadir Ahmed Said (1992)
Alma no Olho, Zózimo Bulbul (1973)
Relax, Be Cruel, Marion Scemama (1983/2023)
Genome Chronicles, John Akomfrah (2009)

Favourite Screening

Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the ’60s in Brussels, Chantal Akerman at BFI London (introduced by Daniella Shreir) (screening)
Robina Rose, Nightshift at Maltings Cinema, Berwick-Upon-Tweed (introduced by Charlotte Proctor) (screening)
O’Pierrot, Tanoa Sasraku as part of History Reverberates: Portraits of Identity at Tate Britain (screening)
Dan Guthrie, Empty Alcove, Rotting Figure at Chisenhale Gallery (installation)
Wormshine, Sam Williams as part of Soil at Somerset House (installation)
I’m Too Sad to Tell You, Bas Jan Ader at South London Gallery (installation)

Tony Paley

Capital Celluloid blog

Favourite 2025 Releases

1 Sound of Falling (Schilinski)
2 Magellan (Diaz)
3 Sirat (Laxe)
4 Mortician (Kahani)
5 The Ice Tower (Hadžihalović)
6 The Mastermind (Reichardt)
7 Landmarks (Martel)
8 Afternoons of Solitude (Serra)
9 Train Dreams (Bentley)
10 It Was Just an Accident (Panhai)

First Watches and Discoveries

1 Les Dames du bois du Boulogne (Bresson, 1945)
2 Cheyenne Autumn (Ford, 1964)
3 The Unfaithful Wife (Chabrol, 1969)
4 Almayer’s Folly (Akerman, 2011)
5 Patterns (Cook, 1956)
6 Splendor in the Grass (Kazan, 1961)
7 Q, The Winged Serpent (Cohen, 1982)
8 Golden Eighties (Akerman, 1986)
9 House by the River (Lang, 1950)
10 Donkey Skin (Demy, 1970)

Favourite Screening

When the sold out signs are in force at the Rio Cinema in Dalston that means I can get the superb view of the screen from the Circle and that was the case in September when Tom Huddleston, the author of David Lynch: His Work, His World introduced a screening of ERASERHEAD with a fascinating introduction to the director’s life and times. It was like seeing the film afresh and with a receptive and excited audience.

Sophia Panayi

Independent programmer

Favourite 2025 Releases

Sentimental Value
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Sound of Falling
The Ice Tower
Left-Handed Girl
The Mastermind
Final Destination: Bloodlines
One Battle After Another
Eddington

First Watches and Discoveries

Ball of Fire
Red Rooms
The Piano Teacher
Sweet Charity
What A Way to Go
A New Leaf
Heaven (1987)
Starship Troopers
Caché
Queen of Diamonds

Favourite Screening

Chelsea Girl at the BFI as part of their Wanda and Beyond season

Lucy Peters

Writer and Programmer for Electric Blue Cinema

Favourite 2025 Releases

If I Had Legs
C’est Pas Moi
Dry Leaf
Zodiac Killer Project
Chronology of Water
Redoubt
Mare’s Nest
Fiume O Morte!
God is Shy


First Watches and Discoveries

Angelopoulous in general (thanks ICA), Guy Maddin and the Johnson brothers’ ‘Seances’ project, the documentary work of Naomi Kawase, Shinji Somai, Barbara Rupik shorts, Hotel London (BFI restoration) quite a few LSFF shorts but you’ll have to find out come Jan !

Favourite Screening

I hate being this person but our Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes symposium felt very special (although I didn’t actually watch the film itself). Agne Kwami curated a screening of The Fall of the House of Usher this autumn with a live violin score that really enchanted me, and seeing NFTS screenings (especially Tetsuo at PCC and The Hole at Close Up) come from concept to audience was very meaningful. LFF knocked me off my feet with Chronology of Water and If I Had Legs; can’t wait for these to go out in Feb.

Savina Petkova

programmer at Cambridge Film Festival, film critic

Favourite 2025 Releases

Silent Friend
, The Chronology of Water, Blue Heron, Pillion, Familiar Touch, Measures For a Funeral, Zootropolis 2, Mirrors No.3

First Watches and Discoveries

Bull Durham (1988), Punku (2025), Sully (2016), Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), Dark Blue Girl (2017), The Loneliest Planet (2011), The Mirror Has Two Faces (2011)

Favourite Screening

Chelsea Girls at the BFI!!! The Visitor at KV kink party!

Caitlin Quinlan

Writer and editor

Favourite 2025 Releases

Dry Leaf
The Mastermind
Resurrection
Remake
Miroirs No. 3

First Watches and Discoveries

Athens, Return to the Acropolis (Theo Angelopoulos, 1983)
Hurlevent (Jacques Rivette, 1985)
Never Sleep Again (Pia Frankenberg, 1992)
Nightshift (Robina Rose, 1981)
Syntagma (Valie Export, 1983)
The Return of Amílcar Cabral (Sana Na N’Hada, Flora Gomes, 1976)
To Sleep So as to Dream (Kaizo Hayashi, 1986)
Voices Through Time (Franco Piavoli, 1996)
Will (Jessie Maple, 1981)
Zingari (Mario Almirante, 1920)

Favourite Screening

Zingari, 35mm, Pordenone Silent Film Festival
Sholay, Piazza Maggiore, Cinema Ritrovato
Chelsea Girls, 16mm, BFI

Imogen Radwan

Programmer at Violet Hour Cinema

Favourite 2025 Releases

Flow
Nickel Boys
We Are Fugazi From Washington, D.C.
Die My Love
Urchin
The Last Showgirl
Ocean With David Attenborough
E.1027: Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea
28 Years Later
From Ground Zero

First Watches and Discoveries

Floating Clouds (1955, dir. Mikio Naruse) – watched at Close-Up Cinema in the summer. Beautiful, wistful and full of yearning.

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, dir. Stephen Frears) – saw this at the BFI and absolutely loved it! Watching your city as it was decades ago always gives such a fascinating glimpse into how places looked and breathed in a different era.

Lift (short, 2001, dir. Marc Isaacs) – programmed by Weathergirl at Avalon Cafe, this short is another historical view into working class London in the early 00s, where the filmmaker decides to plant himself inside the lift of a tower block with a camera, and waits to see how people react.

Favourite Screening

Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon (1987, dir. Mai Masri, Jean Khalil Chamoun) at The Garden Cinema in July. The screening was preceded by Palestinian sage tea in the bar, where you could by prints and ceramics from Palestinian artists, who spoke to us about the context of their art (mostly landscapes, prints of the natural world) and their connection to the land. I didn’t really know much about the politics of South Lebanon, but it was really cool to see a community of women so fearlessly resisting war and occupation, and making sense of their experiences despite their oppression.

Nicolas Raffin

Managing Curator, Cinema at ICA

Favourite 2025 Releases

I Only Rest in the Storm
Fiume o morte!
Sound of Falling
My Undesirable Friends, Part 1: Last Air in Moscow
Dry Leaf
One Battle After Another
The President’s Cake
Bury Us in a Lone Desert
The Secret Agent
Daria’s Night Flowers

Hope Rangaswami

Editorial Assistant at Sight and Sound; freelance writer and programmer

Favourite 2025 Releases

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You – dir. Mary Bronstein
Sudan, Remember Us – dir. Hind Meddeb
My Father’s Shadow – dir. Akinola Davies Jr.
Dry Leaf – dir. Alexandre Koberidze
Final Destination: Bloodlines – dir. Adam B. Stein and Zach Lipovsky
April – dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili
A Want in Her – dir. Myrid Carten
The Testament of Ann Lee – dir. Mona Fastvold
Redoubt – dir. John Skoog
Sorry, Baby – dir. Eva Victor

First Watches and Discoveries

I discovered so many films I loved this year. To condense what would otherwise be too long a list, I’m including below ten new favourites that I encountered in UK cinemas (ICA, BFI Southbank, Phoenix Picturehouse, and Watershed).

A New Leaf (1971) – dir. Elaine May
Queen of Diamonds (1991) – dir. Nina Menkes
Sweet Charity (1969) – dir. Bob Fosse
Golden Eighties (1986) – dir. Chantal Akerman
Caché (2005) – dir. Michael Haneke
Nightshift (1981) – dir. Robina Rose
A Moment of Innocence (1996) – dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
The Killing (1956) – dir. Stanley Kubrick
Heaven (1987) – dir. Diane Keaton
The Working Girls (1974) – dir. Stephanie Rothman

Favourite Screening

Tetsuo II: Body Hammer at the ICA (surprise screening)

Shaghayegh Raoufi

Film scholar and Film curator

Favourite 2025 Releases

I Only Rest in the Storm (Pedro Pinho)
Magellan (Lav Diaz)
Below the Clouds (Gianfranco Rosi)
The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich)
Fiume o morte! (Igor Bezinović)
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (The Quay Brothers)
Two Prosecutors (Sergei Loznitsa)
Landmarks (Lucrecia Martel)
The Assistant (Wilhelm Sasnal)

First Watches and Discoveries

CHEKHOV’S MOTIFS (Kira Muratova)
Daughters of Darkness (Harry Kummel)
OUR VOICE OF THE EARTH, MEMORY AND THE FUTURE
(Marta Rodríguez& Jorge Silva)
To Sleep So as to Dream (Kaizo Hayashi)
The Devil Probably
Hans – Ein Junge in Deuch (Sohrab Shahid Saless)
Grabbe’s Last Summer
(Sohrab Shahid Saless)
Speaking of Bunuel (José Luis López-Linares, Javier Rioyo)
Nadie es Inocente (Sarah Minter)
Regrouping (Lizzie Borden)

Favourite Screening

I only rest in the storm at ICA

Joseph Richards

Founder Intervals

Favourite 2025 Releases

Blue Heron
Dry Leaf
Miroirs No.3
Peter Hujar’s Day
It Was Just an Accident
Misericordia
Blue Moon
Eddington
28 Years Later
Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning

First Watches and Discoveries

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (dir. William H. Whyte, 1980)
Exotica (dir. Atom Egoyan, 1994)
A Woman Like Eve (dir. Nouchka van Brakel, 1979)
Henry Fonda for President (dir. Alexander Horwath, 2024)
Salesman (dir. David Maysles, Albert Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin, 1969)
Gang of Four (dir. Jacques Rivette, 1989)
The Liberation of L.B. Jones (dir. William Wyler, 1970)
Little Murders (dir. Alan Arkin, 1971)
Memories of Underdevelopment (dir. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968)
The Memory of Justice (dir. Marcel Ophüls, 1976)

Favourite Screening

Experiments with making salted popcorn tolerable in New York accompanied by Better Man at the Regal Essex Crossing and A Complete Unknown at Angelika Village East.

Borzage’s 7th Heaven at MOMA — sans popcorn but introduced by Philip Kehr —where I also got reacquainted with The Clock.

The enlivening struggles with live subtitling at Hurlevent during the ICA’s excellent Rivette season.

Sanrizuka at Open City.

Snoozing through about a 1/3rd of Chelsea Girls in NFT1; snoozing, fresh off the plane and appropriately delirious, (and stuffy) watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind in Cinema Modernissimo in Bologna, a festival bookended by a supremely alienating and sober screening of Niki de Saint Phalle’s Daddy.

To Sleep So as to Dream and Circus Boys at ICA’s Celluloid Sunday Festival. The Beast to Die in Bristol. The Gorge and Cutter’s Way at Jonathan Meades Liberated Film Club. Diane Keaton’s Heaven accompanied by a fantastic lecture by Ellis Searson.

Selina Robertson

Film programmer and researcher

Favourite 2025 Releases

In no particular order:

Pillion
A Real Pain
The Ice Tower
Motherboard
Landmarks
Romeria
Sentimental Value
Iron Ladies
Fuck Toys
BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions

First Watches and Discoveries

Nobody’s Wife, dir. Maria Luisa Bemberg
Das Falshe Wort(The Lie), dirs. Katrin Seybold and Melanie Spitta
Deprisa Depresia, dir Carlos Saura
Coconut Head Generation, dir. Alain Kassanda
Twenty-First Century Nuns, dir Tom Stephen
Kelby, dir Annette Kennerley
Nightshift, dir. Robina Rose

Favourite Screening

The Working Girls (4K restoration) at Cinema Rediscovered 2025 with a live Q&A with director Stephanie Rothman and me via my iphone!

Erik Anderson Scott

queer freelance film curator, Sailors are Gay! at the Rio Cinema, Films are Gay! at the Finch Community Cinema

Favourite 2025 Releases

1. The Mastermind (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
2. The Love that Remains (dir. Hylnur Pálmason)
3. My Sunshine (dir. Hiroshi Okuyama) [UK premiere at Queer East 2025]
4. Train Dreams (dir. Clint Bentley)
5. Rose of Nevada (dir. Mark Jenkin)
6. It Was Just an Accident (dir. Jafar Panahi)
7. Mare’s Nest (Dir. Ben Rivers)
8. Blue Moon (Dir. Richard Linklater)
9. Pillion (Dir. Harry Lighton)
10. Redoubt (Dir. John Skoog)
11. Lady (Dir. Samuel Abrahams)

First Watches and Discoveries

1. What a Way to Go! (1964, dir. J. Lee Thompson) [the campest, gayest, most glorious film that truly has changed my life. Shirley MacLaine with costumes by Edith Head is pure technicolour cinema.]

2. Salomé (1922, dir. Alla Nazimova) [a stunning tribute to Oscar Wilde with striking set and costume design by Aubrey Beardsley, and according to Kenneth Anger, an entirely queer cast.]

3. Zachariah (1971, dir. George Englund) [Gay Acid Western where gunfights include electric guitars and extensive drum solos. What more do you need?]

4. Filibus (1915, dir. Mario Roncoroni) [I can hook you with just three words: Lesbian sky pirate.]

5. Trapped by the Mormons (2005, dir. Ian Allen) [a queer post-Mormon remake of the 1922 Mormonsploitation film, this time featuring mind-controlling drag king vampires.]

Favourite Screening

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927, dir. Ernst Lubitsch, screening at BFI Southbank NFT1 for the Film on Film Festival, 2025) Silent films were made to be seen with an audience.

Favourite 2025 Releases

Levels (Rhayne Vermette)
Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie)
The Ice Tower (Lucile Hadžihalilović)
Invention (Courtney Stephens)
Miroirs No. 3 (Christian Petzold)
The Love That Remains (Hlynur Pálmason)
Fiume O Morte! (Igor Bezinović)
With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari)
Viet and Nam (Truong Minh Quy)
Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)

First Watches and Discoveries

Misunderstood/Incompreso (Luigi Comencini, 1966)

Burning Beds (Pia Frankenberg, 1987)
At the Top of the Stairs/En haut des marches (Paul Vecchiali, 1983)
A Whistle in My Heart (Mike Naruse, 1959)
The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968)
The Germans and Their Men/Die Deutschen und ihre Männer – Bericht aus Bonn (Heike Sander, 1989)
Deed Undone/Ongedaan gedaan (Frans van de Staak, 1989)
Bonne chance (Sacha Guitry, 1935)
ICA (Derek Jarman, 1984)
Diary Films (Jeff Keen, 1976)
The restoration of The Arch (Tang Shu-Shuen, 1968)
New Women (Cai Chusheng, 1935)

Favourite Screening

Robina Rose’s Nightshift presented by Charlotte Procter at Reflet-Médicis in Paris;
Raul Ruiz’s City of Pirates at the ICA (Serge Daney season);
Pia Frankenberg’s The Assault on 35mm + Ain’t Nothin’ Without You + Q&A with Frankenberg and Laura Staab

Favourite 2025 Releases

28 Years Later (Danny Boyle)
All These Summers (Therese Henningsen)
Being John Smith (John Smith)
Blue Heron (Sophy Romvari)
By the Stream (Hong Sang-soo)
Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued (Julian Castronovo)
Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze)
The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
Sex (Dag Johan Haugerud)
What Does That Nature Say to You (Hong Sang-soo)

First Watches and Discoveries

(Excluding things I programmed at CNFW)

Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920)
The Lacey Rituals (The Lacey family, 1973)
So Is This (Michael Snow, 1982)
One Lives by Love (Silvano Agosti, 1984)
The Black Tower (John Smith, 1987)
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Kazuo Hara, 1987)
Salaam Cinema (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1995)
Drylongso (Cauleen Smith, 1998)
A Better Man (Attiya Khan & Lawrence Jackman, 2017)
Running Fields I-IV (Flo Mavy, 2024)

Favourite Screening

So Is This at Close-Up Film Centre, for the Liberated Film Club and curated by John Smith. I’ve struggled to concentrate on any films this year, so watching a film that literally only gives you one thing to concentrate on at a time was the most absorbed and lost-in-the-art I’ve been all year.

Laura Staab

Writer and Critic

First Watches and Discoveries

Willow Springs (1973, Werner Schroeter)
Une sale histoire (1977, Jean Eustache)
Ombres de soie (1978, Mary Stephen)
Nightshift (1981, Robina Rose)
Another Way (1982, Karoly Makk, János Xantus)
Sheer Madness (1983, Margarethe von Trotta)
Syntagma (1984, VALIE EXPORT)
Ain’t Nothin’ Without You (1985, Pia Frankenberg)
Sausage Film (1990, Sarah Lucas)
Frank’s Cock (1993, Mike Hoolboom)
Cold Water (1994, Olivier Assayas)
Chronic (1996, Jennifer Reeves)
Cure (1997, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Wonderland (1999, Michael Winterbottom)
Blue Sun Palace (2024, Constance Tsang)
Henry Fonda for President (2024, Alexander Horwath)
Invention (2024, Courtney Stephens)

Favourite Screening

Fall of the House of Usher (1928, Jean Epstein) at the Nickel
By the Bluest of Seas (1936, Boris Barnet) at the ICA
Out 1: Noli me tangere (1971, Jacques Rivette) at the ICA
Office Killer (1997, Cindy Sherman) in NFT1
Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes (2025, Gabriel Azorín) at the Vienna Stadtkino

Leah Sun

Curator of The Knot Collective

Favourite 2025 Releases

Silent Friend
Happyend
Sorry, Baby
No Other Choice
The Voice of Hind Rajab

First Watches and Discoveries

The Man with the Suitcase (1983, Chantal Akerman)
Underground (2024, Kaori Oda)
Insiang (1976, Lino Brocka)
Tropical Fish (1995, Chen Yu-hsun)

Daniel Turner

Film programmer at ICA

Favourite 2025 Releases

One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Gangsterism (Isiah Medina)
MACDO (Racornelia)
I Only Rest in the Storm (Pedro Pinho)
Notes of a Crocodile (Daphne Xu)
What Does That Nature Say to You (Hong Sangsoo)
Fiume o morte! (Igor Bezinović)
Fire of Wind (Marta Mateus)
Phantoms of July (Julian Radlmaier)
Dry Leaf (Alexander Koberidze)

There are several 2025 releases that I was fortunate enough to see last year that otherwise would have been included on this list – Afternoons of Solitude, Caught by the Tides, Invention and Measures for a Funeral to name just a few.

First Watches and Discoveries

The Razors Edge (Jocelynne Saab)
Sauve la vie (qui peut) (Jean-Luc Godard) (Assembled by Michael Witt)
City of Pirates (Raul Ruiz)
Red River (Howard Hawks)
Amor de Perdição (Manoel de Oliveira)
From the Clouds to the Resistance (Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub)
Van Gogh (Maurice Pialat)
The Wild Palms (Jean-Luc Godard)
After Manet, After Giorgione – Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe or Fete Champetre (Malcolm Le Grice)
The Crimson Curtain (Alexandre Astruc)

Favourite Screening

Holiday (George Cukor)
Il Cinema Ritrovato
My first time seeing this wonderful film on the big screen, in a packed cinema, at a wonderful festival, what more could you ask for.

Frágil Como o Mundo (Rita Azevedo Gomes)
Amsterdam Film Meeting, Filmhuis Cavia
A remarkable film followed by a fabulous Q&A, but as is so often the case what made this screening a highlight of the year, was the environment and atmosphere that surrounded it. Many festivals and film events claim to be a communal experience but few ever really live it up, Amsterdam Film Meeting is a genuine exception.

Out 1 (Jacques Rivette)
Spectres: The Cinema of Jacques Rivette, ICA
It’s the height of hubris and generally insufferable to include a screening you were directly involved in and yet here we are. The fact I’m willing to embrace such embarrassment, hopefully speaks to just how special the experience of watching Out 1 in the cinema was, my favourite cinema-going experience of this year or any year.

Matt Turner

writer and editor

Favourite 2025 Releases

Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze)
Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued (Julian Castronovo)
Resurrection (Bi Gan)
Remake (Ross McElwee)
Levers (Rhayne Vermette)
Through A Mirror Darkly (Naeem Mohammed)
Green Grey Black Brown (Wang Yuyan)
Shifty (Adam Curtis)
In the Manner of Smoke (Armand Yervant Tufenkian)
The Blue Line (Marie Dumora)

First Watches and Discoveries

Ménilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926) [35mm, BFI Southbank] Strike (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) [35mm, Piazza Maggiore]
The Asthenic Syndrome (Kira Muratova, 1989) [35mm, ICA London]
So Is This (Michael Snow, 1982) [35mm, ICA London]
The Blue Planet (Franco Piavoli, 1982) [.mp4, home]
Nightshift (Robina Rose, 1981) [DCP, BFI Southbank]
Chelsea Girls (Andy Warhol, 1966) [16mm, BFI Southbank]
Welcome II The Terrordome (Ngozi Onwurah, 1995) [35mm, BFI Southbank]
Crystal Gazing (Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen, 1982) [16mm, BFI Southbank]
Red Spirit Lake (Charles Pinion, 1993) [.mp4, home]

Favourite Screening

Seeing Timmy Chalomet watching the Marty Supreme trailer with his boys, two rows across at the One Battle After Another Vistavision screening at Odeon Leicester Square.

Valentine Umansky

Curator, Tate

Favourite 2025 Releases

-Pedro Pinho, O riso e a faca
-Maryam Tafakory, Razeh-del
-Fazal Rizvi’s installation Kissing at the Threshold at the Sharjah biennial
-Astrit Ismaili’s first video flutura premiered at Gjon Mili in Kosovo
-Haig Aivazian’s Children of Darkness at Villa Medici & Thailand Biennial

First Watches and Discoveries

– Sema Bekirović’s film premiered at the Gjon Mili Biennial in Kosovo
– Akira Ikezoe, Clam and the Sun (also thanks to Sharjah)
– Walid Siti, The Trouble Bear and the Palace at Jameel 🙏🏼
– Anthony Ramos, Black and White (1975) thanks to Pompidou center
– David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (yes! First watch!)
– rediscovering Ed Atkins at Tate Britain thanks to Nathan Ladd and Polly Staple
– Alanis Obomsawin, Aban-waki, 2006, courtesy of MoMA PS1

Favourite Screening

– Tate’s Christopher Harris screening over two venues co programmed with Matthew Barrington at Barbican – and Maxime Jean-Baptiste’s performance for the cinéma 💕 courtesy of OpenCity Docs, the best film festival in London

Jaison Washington

programmer of GP Surgery at The Garden Cinema, archivist at LUX Moving Image, experimental filmmaker.

Favourite 2025 Releases

Left Handed Girl (2025)-Directed by Tsou Shih-Ching
Seeikokan III (2025)-Directed by Morgan Quaintance
Sorry Baby (2025)-Directed by Eva Victor
Sinners (2025)-Directed by Ryan Coogler

First Watches and Discoveries

Cage of Flame (1992)- Directed by Kayla Parker Discovered at Echoes From the Static curated by Nicole Atkinson.

Running on Empty (1988)-Directed by Sidney Lumet

Cooley High (1975)-Directed by Michael Schultz

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972)-Directed by Jonas Mekas

Favourite Screening

Nowhere (1997)-Directed by Gregg Araki screened by Never Watching Movies at the Rio Cinema.

Rhi YorkWilliams

PEPCOT co-organiser

Favourite 2025 Releases

Companion
Mickey 17
Final Destination 6
Weapons
One Battle After Another
Palestine 36

First Watches and Discoveries

Sankara’s Orphans (2019)
Sorcerer (1977)
Barb Wire (1996)
Blonde Death (1984)
Crash (1996)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
The Wiz (1978)

Favourite Screening

Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) at The Rio Cinema, programmed by Pink Palace

Misha Zakharov (@m_m_zakharov)

Author, film worker, and refugee

Favourite 2025 Releases

A-Z:

2000 Metres to Andriivka (dir. Mstyslav Chernov)
Aida Returns (dir. Carol Mansour)
Fragments of Ice (dir. Maria Stoianova)
Hard Truths (dir. Mike Leigh)
Measures for a Funeral (dir. Sofia Bohdanowicz)
Palestine 36 (dir. Annemarie Jacir)
Peter Hujar’s Day (dir. Ira Sachs)
The Encampments (dir. Michael T Workman, Kei Pritsker)
The Mastermind (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
With Hasan in Gaza (dir. Kamal Aljafari)

Blind spots: Miroirs No. 3, Dry Leaf, Where to Land, I Only Rest in the Storm, Cent Mille Milliards

First Watches and Discoveries

AIDS-era films by Marion Scemama (especially her tapes featuring David Wojnarowicz, seen at BFMAF), Stuart Marshall (Kaposi’s Sarcoma, 1983; BFMAF), and Over Our Dead Bodies, 1991; AIDS day screening at the Rio), and Gary Schneider (Salters Cottages, 1981, featuring Peter Hujar; Camden Art Centre)

Two by Chetna Vora: Oyoyo (1980) and Frauen in Berlin (1982) (Barbican, OCD/Cinema Restored)

Two by Jo-fei Chen: Where is My Love? (1996) and Incidental Journey (2000) (Barbican, Queer East)

Badnam Basti (1971), dir. Prem Kapoor (Barbican, Queer 70s)
The Sealed Soil (1977), dir. Marva Nabili (Iranian Film Archive telegram channel)
Nightshift (1981), dir. Robina Rose (BFMAF)
Fangs (1981), dir. Mohammed Shebl (Barbican, SAFAR)
The Fall of Otrar (1991), dir. Ardak Amirkulov (Cinema Rediscovered)

Favourite Screening

Lawrence of Arabia at PCC, complete with overture and intermission. Free Palestine.

May Ziadé

filmmaker & filmworker

Favourite 2025 Releases

(ordered by viewing date)
east of noon dir hala elkoussy
temo re dir anka gujabidze
misericordia dir alain giraudie
dreams dir dag johan haugerud
invention dir courtney stephens
dry leaf dir alexander koberidze
blue heron dir sophy romvari
a frown gone mad dir omar mismar
the ice tower dir lucie hadzihalilovic
caught by the tides dir jia zhangke

First Watches and Discoveries

razor’s edge dir jocelyne saab
gehenu lamai dir sumitra peries
un dessert pour constance dir sarah maldolor
la cérémonie dir claude chabrol
a woman like eve dir nouchka van brakel
han ok-hee films
deprisa deprisa dir carlos saura
brief encounters dir kira muratova
travolta & me dir patricia mazuy
cathy come home dir ken loach

Favourite Screening

strike! in bologna (ritrovato) on the piazza maggiore with the most incredible live score
watch out for zouzou @ ciné lumière for safar film fest opening night
sandra lahire’s serpent river by cinenova / light cone @ luminor
takeoff / india cabaret by the machine that kills bad people @ ica
jocelyne saab shorts @ bertha dochouse for open city docs
i am my own woman programmed by tgirls on film @ farr’s
i am wanda iffr / all of katja raganelli @ iffr
the magino village story: raising silkworms @ courtisane festival in ghent
five times woman programme by another screen online
lynn loo and guy sherwin @ not nowhere
BONUS – dyke tv: the early years @ ica (bonus because i organised it, but what can i say— it was glorious)

Zodiac Film Club

Film Community and Programming

Favourite 2025 Releases

Weapons and Materialists. We either want to come out of a new release having had a lot of fun… or feeling ill at ease.

First Watches and Discoveries

La Otra (introduced by Camilla of Invisible Women!): so stylish and tense. Kind of if Uncut Gems was a Mexican melodrama from the 40s.

The Color of Night: the most bonkers erotic thriller of all time, it deserves to be as famous as Showgirls.

Favourite Screening

So many good ones, but attending the first ‘Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair’ season in the UK to see Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was very exciting. Such an unexpectedly brilliant and beautiful film.

Plus a special mention for our own Summertime Sadness screenings at The Garden Cinema, our return to programming after a long break.