Cinema in the City at Cotton Exchange Rooftop Garden

New for 2021, FACT presents Cinema in the City, a curated selection of six critically-acclaimed indies, across two weekends at Cotton Exchange Rooftop Garden. Featuring off beat titles from the last year of releases, these open air screenings will be accompanied by food and drink partner Maray, who will be serving from their much loved Middle Eastern inspired menu.

The films started on Friday 13 August with the extraordinary hybrid fiction/documentary, and boisterous ode to neighbourhood bars everywhere, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets. Directed by brothers Bill and Ross Turner, this booze-fueled work tracks a group of regulars over the course of one evening at the Roaring 20s cocktail lounge as it prepares to close its doors forever. The Ross’ film was followed by Francis Lee’s 1840s-set Ammonite (Sat 14 Aug) starring Kate Winslet as British palaeontologist Mary Anning, and Saoirse Ronan as the woman she falls in love with.

a curated selection of six critically-acclaimed indies, across two weekends at Cotton Exchange Rooftop Garden

Then, on Sunday 16 August, director Christos Nikou’s high-concept Greek drama Apples asked us to imagine a world in which amnesia is a common, and sudden, affliction as Aris (Aris Servetalis) came to terms with losing his memory and embarked upon a surreal government programme designed to help him reintegrate into society.

This weekend, meanwhile, features Robert Machoian’s The Killing of Two Lovers (Fri 20 Aug), a sparse and surprising Utah-set portrait of a disintegrating marriage, followed by Billie Piper’s uncompromising directorial debut Rare Beasts (Sat 21 Aug). The films finish on Sunday 22 August with Elizabeth Lo’s documentary Stray, which explores the streets of Istanbul through the eyes of three stray dogs.