This year’s digital edition of Open City Documentary Festival is excited to present a web-based exhibition for the first time; Expanded Realities includes curated and newly commissioned work from artists and practitioners pushing the boundaries of interactive non-fiction storytelling. The exhibition will be free to access and available internationally from 9th – 15th September.
The programme seeks to find new pathways for storytelling at the intersection of art and technology. Traditionally a free exhibition hosted during the festival at the Central London Festival Hub, platforming a selection of interactive cross-media installations and VR films from around the world. This year’s exhibition will include:
- A Space Journey – An interactive scenography that encourages participants to move, and be moved, by their immediate surroundings from multidisciplinary artist Ingvild Isaksen.
- They Call Me Asylum Seeker – A new web-based interactive experience that follows four LGBTQ people from the Egyptian Revolution in 2011 to the migrant and refugee “crisis” in Europe today from acclaimed new media artist Tamara Shogaolu.
- Iustitium/State of Exception – A new commission created by artist-researcher pair Merijn Royaards and Henrietta Williams, charts a hyper-real visual and sonic journey through the heavily controlled landscape of lockdown London during the Covid-19 crisis of 2020.
- Voyages – A new festival format which collects two interactive multimedia essays exploring stories of place, featuring special commissions from archivist and curator Andrea Zarza Canova and feminist researcher and curator Chandra Frank
- Arcade – Another new collection which contains a number of playable works made with open-source game-making tools that are available to explore direct in the browser.
View the full microsite here
OPEN CITY DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
Festival tickets are on sale now, with all events taking place ONLINE between 9th – 15th September – find out more at www.opencitylondon.com
Open City Documentary Festival’s tenth edition will be taking place online from 9th to 15th September. The festival’s first digital edition will also be the first that is available internationally, with affordable online screenings accessible in the UK, special events live-streaming worldwide, and an industry programme that is available free internationally.
Open City Documentary Festival 2020 will celebrate the art of non-fiction through 48 new non-fiction films, 10 cross-media projects, and 3 audio documentaries. The new film programme includes 3 World Premieres, 3 International Premieres, 5 European premieres, and 29 UK Premieres, and films from 28 different countries. Of the directors presenting new work in the film programme, 54% are women or non- binary filmmakers.
New films are presented across 23 screening programmes, each of which is available to watch during the festival period for £3 via festivalscope. Films are split across two blocks, with 11 programmes available during the first (Weds 9th to Sat 12th), and 12 events in the second (Sat 12th to Tues 15th).
By Katya Marletta