Press room

Seasons, Festivals and Special Events:

• Queer 60s: LGBTQ+ Cinema in the Decade before Stonewall 

  – Wed 1 July – Tue 7 July 

• Project a Black Planet: Film – Wed 8 Jul – Sun 6 Sep
• Experiments In Film: Selected 16 – Thu 30 Jul 

Regular Programmes:

• Senior Community Screenings: 
• My Father’s Shadow – 6 July
• Maspalomas – 20 July 
• Relaxed Screenings: 
• The Christophers – Sun 5 Jul
• D is for Distance – Mon 13 Jul 
• Kokuho – Fri 24 Jul

In July, Barbican Cinema presents a bold and international programme which begins with Project a Black Planet: Film, a major three-month season that explores the circulation of Pan-African ideas in cinema. Programmed alongside the Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica exhibition in the Art Gallery, this brings together landmark films and rare archival works to look at how festivals, museums, archives and carnivals have all shaped traditions of resistance, solidarity, and Black internationalism. 

July also sees the culmination of Queer 60s: LGBTQ+ Cinema in the Decade before Stonewall, a season looking back at this decade of significant social change through an LGBTQ+ lens. Screenings include the shorts programme Queer Britain on Screen in the 1960s, a collection of curios made before and after the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967; and Canada’s first ever gay feature film Winter Kept Us Warm. 

Further highlights include Experiments in Film, which presents the programme Selected 16, a vibrant collection of new short films by some of the most exciting early-career artists working today, nominated by the shortlisted artists in the Film London Jarman Award. 

Festivals, Seasons and Special Events

Project a Black Planet: Film

Wed 8 Jul – Sun 6 Sep 2026
Barbican Cinema 

This summer, Barbican Cinema hosts an expansive film, performance and discussion programme inspired by the exhibition Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica at Barbican Art Gallery, as part of a major Centre-wide season. Across 21  screenings and events, filmmakers, artists, poets, and thinkers will engage in questions of memory, colonialism, diaspora, and liberation, foregrounding cinema as a vital space for political imagination, cultural encounter, and communal renewal. 

Together, these works reflect on the enduring power of cultural exchange in forging new worlds beyond imperial legacies.

The Pan-African Festival of Algiers (18) + Introduction by Kevin Le Gendre

France/Algeria 1969, Dir William Klein, 120min
Wed 8 Jul, 7pm 
Cinema 1

The opening programme for Project a Black Planet: Film captures the 1969 Festival Panafricain d'Alger as a vital, euphoric expression of celebration, political energy, and organised chaos.

William Klein’s The Pan-African Festival of Algiers documents the wide array of legendary performers who attended the festival, including Miriam Makeba, Nina Simone, Maya Angelou, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver and Archie Shepp. When seen today, the festival stands as a pivotal moment – a space for political and intellectual exchange, filled with the hope that Pan-Africanism, alongside the global surge of liberation movements, would lead to a liberated Africa and a global diasporic solidarity.

Soul in the Eye (Alma no Olho)
Brazil 1973, Dir Zózimo Bulbul,11min

Mueda, Memoria e Massacre
Mozambique 1979, Dir Ruy Guerra, 80min

Sat 11 Jul 2026, 2pm

Soul in the Eye is a foundational work of Black Brazilian cinema. The film features an exuberant performance celebrating Black Brazilian history and traces a diasporic journey from the hardships of the slave trade to freedom after abolition, through an interconnected dialogue of dance, music and radical politics.

Ruy Guerra’s Mueda, Memória e Massacre explores radical politics and history through an annual performance in Mueda, a Mozambican village. Using surreal elements, elders re-enact a stand-off between villagers and Portuguese colonial officers that resulted in the massacre of the local protestors. 

Abolição (18)

Brazil 1988, Dir Zózimo Bulbul, 153min
Sun 12 Jul, 2pm 
Cinema 2 

An epic documentary exploring the histories of slavery and the continued legacy and impact on Black Brazilians today. The film travels the length of the country, asking ordinary people what abolition actually meant to them. What could easily feel like a daunting task becomes, in the filmmaker’s hands, a remarkable journey full of life, rebellion and resistance.

Rivers of Memory, Currents of Myth (15) + Performance by Coby Sey

Sat 25 Jul, 2pm
Cinema 3

Dreaming Rivers,
UK 1988, Dir Martina Attille, 30min

A Camel
Sudan 1981, Dir Ibrahim Shaddad, 15min

Kokoa
Niger 1985, Dir Moustapha Alassane, 13min

Okay Keskidee! Let Me See Inside
UK 2025, Dir Rhea Storr, 20min
Across these four films, memory and myth operate not simply as reflections of the past, but as active processes through which histories are reimagined and cultural identities are formed. The screening will be followed by a performance from South-East London based songwriter, producer, vocalist and DJ, Coby Sey.

Spanning different times and geographies, the works explore how lived experience is reconstructed through animation, montage, and oral testimony, highlighting the importance of imagination in engaging with diasporic histories.

From Ibrahim Shaddad's surreal meditation on the inner life of a camel to Moustapha Alassane's playful stop-motion allegory rooted in Niger's wrestling traditions, these films transform historical experience into something symbolic and open-ended.

Queer 60s: LGBTQ+ Cinema in the Decade before Stonewall 

Wed 1 July – Tue 7 July
Cinema 1 + 2

Following the Barbican’s Queer 80s season in 2024 and Queer 70s in 2025, Queers 60s is the third instalment in a series of bold films which coincide with Pride Month and celebrates LGBTQ+ representation in cinema. 

Despite homosexuality still being illegal in many countries around the world during the 1960s, including the UK and the USA, filmmakers managed to create fearless works, sometimes openly, sometimes coded, that dared to show a variety of LGBTQ+ lives on screen.

Queer Britain on Screen in the 1960s + introduction by archivist Simon McCallum
Dir various 
Wed 1 Jul, 6.20pm
Cinema 1 

A chance to explore the Sixties in the UK through a queer lens, featuring British queer archive shorts made before and after the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. 

Including films from the BFI National Archive and beyond, including interviews with gay men and women before the partial legalisation of same-sex sexual activity, unforgettable drag performances from the Black Cap in Camden and the potent short Dream A40, in which two men are menaced while driving through the countryside.

Winter Kept Us Warm + Introduction (15*)
Canada 1965, Dir David Secter, 81min
Tue 7 Jul, 6.30pm
Cinema 1 

Taking its name from the TS Eliot poem 'The Wasteland', Winter Kept Us Warm was the first English-language Canadian film to play at Cannes. Directed by 22-year-old David Secter, the film is a touching, low-budget drama about the close friendship between Peter, an effete young freshman (Henry Tarvainen) and Doug, a laddish senior (John Labow).

When Doug humiliates Peter at a formal dinner, it looks like they will become enemies – but Doug grows increasingly fond of Peter. Queer subtext simmers below the surface, culminating in a violent confrontation between the two men. 

Experiments in Film: Selected 16
Dirs various 
Thu 30 July, 6.30pm 
Cinema 3 

Bringing together bold new voices and distinctive artistic perspectives, Selected 16 offers a snapshot of emerging artists’ moving image practice today; from intimate personal storytelling to experimental and visually ambitious works. This has been curated by videoclub and Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN), and this programme will tour throughout leading arts venues across the UK.

Regular Programme Strands

Senior Community Cinema
Welcoming 60+ cinema goers to watch the latest new releases every other Monday morning:

My Father’s Shadow
UK 2026, Dir Akinola Davies Jr, 93min 
Mon 6 Jul, 11am
Cinema 2 

Two young brothers, Remi and Akin, spend a day with their father Folarin, whom they haven't seen in a long time. This long-awaited reunion takes them for the first time to the lively heart of the capital Lagos, a vibrant and ruthless metropolis. Amidst crowded markets and ramshackle buses, the boys discover not only the chaotic grandeur of the city, but also the daily struggles of their father, engaged in a lonely fight to survive and stay afloat.

Maspalomas 
Spain 2025, Dir Jose Mari Goenaga, 96min
Mon 20 July, 11am 
Cinema 2 

76 year-old Vicente leads life the way he likes it in Maspalomas, spending his days lying in the sun, partying, and looking for pleasure. An unexpected accident forces him to move in with his daughter in San Sebastián, and eventually into a care home, where he finds himself driven back into the closet. In this new environment, Vicente must ask himself if he has enough time left to make his peace with others… and with himself.

Relaxed Screenings
A relaxed screening takes place in an environment that is specially tailored for a neurodiverse audience, as well as those who find a more informal setting beneficial. 

The Christophers 
UK, USA, Dir Steven Soderbergh, 100min

Sun 5 Jul, 12pm 
Cinema 3 

A mainstay of the London art scene since his starry breakout in the creative explosion of the 1960’s, Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) has drifted into a cluttered, self-imposed seclusion. His two estranged children enlist Lori, a young painter and sometime-forger, to pose as a prospective assistant and gain access to a fabled series of unfinished canvases Julian has buried deep in his home studio, in a deceptive bid to secure an inheritance for themselves.

Both poignant and sparklingly witty, Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Ed Solomon (Charlie's Angels), deliver a sharp and remarkable tale of creativity, artistic integrity, legacy and greed.

D is for Distance

UK 2026, Dirs Christopher Petit & Emma Matthews, 90min 
Mon 13 Jul, 6.15pm 
Cinema 3 

Louis Petit suffers a debilitating epilepsy that has shattered his young life and erased his memory of childhood. Louis’ parents, filmmakers Christopher Petit and Emma Matthews, tell Louis’ ongoing story through an extraordinary archive of personal footage and Jodhi May’s narration. 

A meditation on cinema, the NHS and family relationships, D Is for Distance also explores links between technology and the subconscious, and the inner reality of the mind.

Kokuho
Japan 2026, Dir Sang-Il LEE, 175min 
Fri 24 Jul, 12pm 
Cinema 3 

Nagasaki, 1964. After the death of his father, the leader of a yakuza gang, 14-year-old Kikuo is taken under the wing of a famous Kabuki actor. Alongside Shunsuke, the actor’s only son, Kikuo decides to dedicate himself to this traditional form of theatre. Across decades, the two young men grow and evolve together – from acting school to the grandest stages – amid scandals and glory, brotherhood and betrayals, as each pushes to become the greatest living Kabuki master.