Seating 160, the cinema is a resource for our student, staff and community partners. We run a range of activities including the SCCI Cinema Club, student, staff and community-led programming, mini-festivals and partnerships with cultural organizations such as Sadler’s Wells. The UCL East Community Cinema is also a space where our creative community can show and share their own work. All our screenings are free and open to the public.
UCL East Community Cinema programme
Bringing thought-provoking filmmaking to the big screen in East London, the UCL East Community Cinema programme is a series of free film screenings on Wednesday evenings with films that have been specially selected by our students, academics and community partners to inspire, engage and entertain.
Term 3 films
See what's coming up May - June 2026
We're showing a great selections of films at the UCL East Community Cinema this term, from groundbreaking documentaries to student short films.
Past screenings
40 Acres (+ Q&A)
Selected by the New Black Film Collective, a thriller set in a post-apocalyptic world of food scarcity, where a Black Canadian farm family defends their homestead from cannibals after their crops.
Nitrate Kisses
Selected by Spectra, Queer Non-Fiction film club based at UCL East. Barbara Hammer’s first feature-length documentary emerges as both love letter and excavation. A pioneer of queer experimental cinema, Hammer threads together the sensual and the political, layering tender portraits of lesbian and gay couples with fragments of our forbidden archives.
The Body and Moving Image (+Q&A)
The selected films centre on the presence and agency of the body in moving image. The films were selected by Gitta Wigro, an arts professional with over 20 years’ experience, specialising in dance film and dance, and Ali Baybutt, a movement artist, educator, and researcher who currently leads performance modules on the Creative Arts and Humanities BA.
Solaris - 35mm screening
A psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane. A true sci-fi classic! Selected by Victor Buchli (Professor of Material Culture within the Material Culture Group at UCL).
Queerkamp (+Director Q&A)
Sensitive and deeply observational, Queerkamp offers an intimate glimpse into the world of a queer youth summer camp, where young people spend a week among peers who share similar experiences and questions of identity.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (+ Director Q&A)
Jazz and decolonization are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Selected by David Wood (UKRI Research Fellow Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry, School of European Languages, Culture and Society).
Desert Hearts
Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, Donna Deitch’s tender, ground-breaking directorial debut is a landmark of queer cinema and a triumph of independent filmmaking. Selected by Hope Bhargava (student Creative Arts and Humanities BA).
Son of the Soil
Chosen by The New Black Film Collective, Nigerian soldier Zion returns home haunted by the past and determined to avenge his sister’s death.
New Wave Black Cinema (+Q&A)
This programme brings together a selection of short films that explore the raw and complex spectrum of human emotion.
Archived: A Reimagining
BA Creative Arts & Humanities’ second-year students from Moving Image Practice II present a series of short films inspired by UCL Special Collections’ archival and rare printed materials.
The Librarians
Kim A. Snyder’s urgent film shows how librarians in the US have become unexpected freedom fighters – battling censorship and political extremism to defend the right to read.
Love & Rage: Munroe Bergdorf
Selected by The New Black Film Collective for LGBTQ+ History month, ‘Love & Rage’ is an intimate portrait of trailblazer Munroe Bergdorf—author, model, and trans activist.
Coming to You
Gyuri Byun’s groundbreaking Korean documentary centres on two mother Nabi and Vivian’s whose lives were upended when their respective children came out to them — Nabi’s child Hankyeol as trans, and Vivian’s child Yejoon as gay. Overcoming their initial reservations, the two mothers undergo a profound transformation and join PFLAG (Parents, Families and Allies of LGBTAIQ+ People in Korea) to become committed advocates for queer rights.
Magazine Dreams +Q&A
In collaboration with Newham Community Cinema and The New Black Film Collective, join us for a free screening of Magazine Dreams. A man looks after his ailing grandfather while trying to make it in the world of professional bodybuilding.
The films of Pratibha Parmar + Q&A
Spectra, Queer Non-Fiction Films presents a programme of films by filmmaker and activist Pratibha Parmar.