Masterclass with William Raban

Renowned experimental filmmaker William Raban joins the Bench for an afternoon on self-shooting and invisibilising behind the camera.

The Bench has the great pleasure of welcoming one of London's most celebrated experimental filmmakers William Raban after celebrating the 40th anniversary of his Thames Film at the 2026 Open City Documentary Festival.

Raban will be speaking with us about his evolution of methodology coming out of the London Film-Makers' Co-op and moving into the contemporary scene, specifically focusing on his proclivity towards self-shooting and invisibilising behind the camera. He will be screening his films Time and the Wave and The Houseless Shadow.

Time and the Wave (2013) addresses the English obsession with nostalgic displays of pageantry, contrasted with political activism against the corrosive power of late capitalism. It has been screened in cinemas and shown as a continuous installation at the Mercosul Biennale, Brazil 2013.

The Houseless Shadow (2011) is a night-time ethnography exposing the plight of the homeless in central London that formed the end piece to the Dickens and London exhibition at the Museum of London December 2011 - June 2012.

William Raban is one of the foremost British artists and experimental filmmakers of the last fifty years, known primarily for his landscape, performance and multi-screen-based films. From 1972 to 1976, he was the workshop manager of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative and is Professor Emeritus of Film at University of the Arts, London.