Image Credit: Photo of Matthew Barrington, Cinema Curator, Researcher & Writer.

Matthew Barrington doesn’t simply programme films – he creates conversations. Long before becoming a Cinema Curator at the Barbican, completing a PhD on slow cinema or championing some of the world’s most overlooked moving-image works, he was captivated by cinema’s unique ability to help us understand the world. While studying film and later working at Tate, Matthew discovered that curating was itself a creative practice: bringing films together, building audiences, and transforming screenings into spaces where history, politics, music, philosophy and community collide. As he tells us, “A screening wasn’t just an isolated cultural event. It could become a space where people reflected on the world and on their relationship to it.”

We’re catching up with Matthew as he unveils what is arguably, one of the Barbican’s most ambitious cinema programmes to date: Project a Black Planet: Film. Running throughout summer 2026, the 22-event season traces Pan-African ideas through landmark films, rare archival discoveries and contemporary moving-image works, foregrounding cinema as a place of resistance, solidarity, political imagination and cultural renewal.

It’s a programme that perfectly reflects Matthew’s values: thoughtful, inquisitive and driven by the belief that great curation isn’t gatekeeping, but an act of care that broadens our understanding of culture and one another. Beyond the Barbican, you’ll often find him discovering London’s independent film communities at Not-nowhere, Ibraaz and the wonderfully unpredictable Liberated Film Club at Close-Up.

His hope for audiences is refreshingly simple: not to leave believing they’ve mastered Pan-Africanism, but to leave curious enough to keep exploring. So take Matthew’s advice, step beyond the algorithm, embrace the collective experience of cinema, and discover how landmark films can open up new conversations about history, memory, resistance – and the worlds we have yet to imagine.

You’ve built a career around bringing films, ideas and audiences together but before the PhD, the festivals and the Barbican, where did the film bug first bite? Was there a particular screening, filmmaker, cinema, or moment in your younger years that made you realise film could be more than entertainment and become a way of understanding the world?

Like many people, I grew up watching films and loving cinema. Film is a medium that speaks to people in a very immediate way. But I think the moment I realised it could become a vocation, and that film could be a way of understanding the world rather than simply consuming entertainment, came a little later.

I’d already completed a Film BA and a Master’s degree and was working at Tate. At that point I was considering doctoral research, but I was also beginning to realise that curating was itself a practice. Most people who study film imagine they’ll become filmmakers. What fascinated me was the idea that bringing films together, creating contexts for them, and thinking about how audiences encounter them was also meaningful work.

What really interested me was the way films could open onto larger conversations. They could lead you into history, politics, philosophy, music, literature and questions about how we live together. A screening wasn’t just an isolated cultural event. It could become a space where people reflected on the world and on their relationship to it. That’s probably the thread that runs through everything I’ve done since: an interest in cinema not simply as an art form, but as a way of thinking and learning.

I also think that if you’re studying film, you’re often not really necessarily thinking about the cinema so the first time I remember going regularly to screenings with introductions conversations, was at Tate, and it was when I first hand saw the process of an audience being built and community established through showing and talking about film.

Image Credit: Film still from ‘a river holds a perfect memory’ by Hope Strickland (2025). Image courtesy of the artist. Screening on Sun 30 Aug 2026, 14:00 → barbican.org.uk

We live in an age where almost every film ever made feels only a click away, yet many people still struggle to discover work outside the algorithm. What do you think the role of the curator is in 2026 and why do spaces like the Barbican remain important places for collective discovery and cultural conversation?

I think about this question a lot because if you’re working within a public institution, your role isn’t simply to reflect what’s already visible. It’s to think critically about what is being seen, what isn’t being seen, and why.

People often use the word “gatekeeping” negatively, but I’ve become increasingly interested in the idea that curation is also a form of care. If you’re responsible for a public programme, you’re making decisions about what deserves attention, but you’re also asking what conversations are missing and whose perspectives have been overlooked.

The reality is that films never exist in isolation. If you discover a film in an archive, someone maintained that archive. If you read about a film, someone wrote about it. If you attend a programme, someone researched it, contextualised it and invited audiences into it. There is an enormous amount of labour behind cultural memory, and I think good curation acknowledges and builds upon that labour.

The internet gives us unprecedented access, but access is not the same thing as engagement. What institutions like the Barbican can offer is a collective experience and a framework for thinking. The cinema becomes a place where audiences encounter unfamiliar work, discuss ideas with one another and participate in a wider cultural conversation. Those spaces remain incredibly important.

I think cultivating an atmosphere and communicating what cinema has to offer, the history of cinema, beyond just is any given film good or bad, trying to build new communities and strengthen existing ones is such a really powerful thing to be doing.

Image Credit: Film still from ‘New Territories (spectacle is king)’, by Rhea Storr, UK, 2025. Image courtesy of the artist and LUX, London. Screening on Sun 16 Aug 2026, 14:00 → barbican.org.uk

One of the things that makes Project a Black Planet: Film so compelling is that it feels as much about the future as it does the past. As you were shaping the season, were there particular films, themes or discoveries that changed your own understanding of Pan-Africanism – and what do you hope audiences carry with them after the credits roll?

One of the things that became clear very early on is that Pan-Africanism isn’t something you can neatly define through a single programme. When the project first emerged, I remember thinking, “Great, someone else can answer this question,” because I was very aware of how vast the subject is. But the more conversations we had and the more material we encountered, the more I realised that the programme itself needed to reflect that complexity.

The season was built through dialogue, with colleagues, scholars, artists, archives and existing bodies of research. In many ways it became a space where different forms of knowledge could sit alongside one another: film, music, poetry, political thought and visual culture.

What was particularly rewarding was returning to works I’d encountered ten or fifteen years earlier and seeing them differently. That’s one of the things I love about cinema. Films don’t stay fixed. When they’re placed in new contexts or shown alongside different works, they generate new meanings.

I don’t think there’s a perfect programme that leaves audiences feeling they’ve fully “understood” Pan-Africanism. That’s not really the goal. What I hope people take away is curiosity. I hope they leave wanting to read more, listen more, explore the poetry, the music, the political histories and the intellectual traditions that surround these films. If the programme encourages people to continue that journey beyond the cinema, then it’s achieved something meaningful.

Image Credit: Film still from ‘You Hide Me’, by Nii Kwate Owoo, Ghana, 1970. Image courtesy of the artist. Screening on Sat 22 Aug 2026, 14:00 → barbican.org.uk

Many of the films in the season explore ideas of memory, liberation, solidarity and cultural exchange. Looking beyond this programme, where do you see the most exciting developments happening in African and diasporic cinema today – and what gives you optimism about the next generation of filmmakers, artists and audiences?

What gives me optimism is that we’re no longer dependent on a handful of individuals carrying the weight of representation.

When I was younger, you might encounter only a very small number of Black programmers, curators or filmmakers working in visible public roles. Today there’s a much broader ecology. There are curators, writers, archivists, festival organisers and programmers working across different institutions and in different contexts. It’s not perfect, but there are significantly more avenues for this work than there once were.

The same is true of filmmaking itself. Across Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil, Europe and North America there are extraordinary filmmakers producing work in very different ways. Some are making experimental films, some are working in more popular forms, some are creating entirely new cinematic languages. The important thing is that there isn’t just one voice or one movement.

What excites me is the plurality of it all. There isn’t a single genius waiting to be discovered; there are hundreds of artists making fascinating work simultaneously. Audiences have greater opportunities to encounter that work, and there are more people creating the structures that allow those encounters to happen. That’s a genuinely encouraging development.

Image Credit: Film still from ‘Riots and Rumours of Riots’, dir Imruh Bakari, 1981. Image courtesy of the artist. Screening on Sat 1 Aug 2026, 14:00 → barbican.org.uk

Barbican Cinema has developed a reputation for presenting ambitious seasons that connect film to wider questions about society, culture and politics. Without giving away too many secrets, can you offer Run Riot readers a few exclusive hints about what’s exciting you right now – whether that’s the upcoming autumn programme, future projects, or emerging filmmakers and movements that you think deserve our attention?

One project I’m especially excited about is a forthcoming William Greaves retrospective. It’s something I’ve been working towards for six or seven years, and it’s a good example of how much programming depends upon films becoming available and the conditions finally aligning.

Greaves was an extraordinary filmmaker and a figure whose work continues to reveal new possibilities for cinema. One of the things that fascinates me about retrospective programming is the element of rediscovery. You begin to realise how much film history is shaped by access, visibility and circumstance.

Many of his films lost money or fell out of circulation and disappeared from public view for decades after its original release. Today it occupies a very different place within film culture, not because the film changed, but because people worked to preserve it, restore it and create opportunities for audiences to encounter it again.

More broadly, I’m interested in programmes that allow audiences to think about the relationship between cinema and society without reducing films to simple political statements. I’m always drawn to work that challenges us formally as well as intellectually. The most exciting programmes are often those that encourage audiences to think differently – about history, about culture and about the world around them.

Run Riot is all about helping people discover culture and community. If you were planning the perfect cultural day out in London, which three cultural venues, places or communities would you recommend – and what makes each one special to you personally?

Great question.

Not-nowhere is a collective run by artists of colour and run workshops on analogue filmmaking and talks, screenings, it’s a really welcoming space and feels like the gap between maker and audience is really collapsed through the act of sharing and creating a collective space. It’s not something you can do in a larger space, at least not easily, but it’s really wonderful beautiful space.

Ibraaz has had a fantastic series of free talks screenings, particularly those curated by the otolith group, whose Library is currently installed within the gallery, been a really packed programme since opening last year.

Last but not least, Liberated Film Club at Close Up, run by Stanley Schtinter it’s a semi regular programme curated by a series of writers, artists, intellectuals native to London and people passing through. No one knows what’ll be screened but it’s always fascinating, rare and an unexpected revelation.

Find Matthew Barrington at @mrmabarrington

Project a Black Planet: Film
A three-month cinema season celebrating Pan-Africanism
Wed 8 Jul-Sun 6 Sep, 2026
Barbican Cinema

Tickets + info → barbican.org.uk