Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son + Introduction by Mark Webber
Open City Documentary Festival
Thu 12 Mar 2026, 18:30
Barbican Cinema 2

Ken Jacobs’ 1969 structural film classic created from found footage, including the 1905 original, is a masterful investigation of perception itself.

As a prologue to the retrospective Seeing Through Film: Ken and Flo Jacobs, this film includes the 1905 original from Billy Bitzer (D. W. Griffith’s cinematographer).

Step into the contemplative world of acclaimed experimental filmmaker Peter Hutton with a rare screening of three of his most poetic works: Landscape (for Manon), Study of a River, and Time and Tide.

Traveller, sea merchant and avid sailor, Peter Hutton made silent films grounded in the fleeting movement of rivers, clouds, mist, smoke and sunlight, inspired by the river painters from the Hudson river school (1829–1908).

Celebrated artist-filmmaker Christopher Harris will be in London this May for a series of screenings at Tate Modern and the Barbican Centre. The programme, spanning both venues, includes the UK premiere of his latest film, Speaking in Tongues Take One—an experimental interpretation of Ishmael Reed’s 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo—as well as a work-in-progress screening of God Bless the Child, an autobiographical exploration of the artist’s experiences as a foster child.

In February the Barbican is holding a rare screening of Park Lanes, Kevin Jerome Everson’s eight-hour meditation on labour and craft inside a factory producing bowling lane equipment. Mirroring a full workday, the film captures the rhythms of production and the artistry of everyday work without commentary, offering a unique and immersive perspective on industrial life.