Ben Rivers


Ben Rivers is an artist and experimental filmmaker based in London, England. His work has been screened at film festivals and galleries around the world and have won numerous awards. Rivers' work ranges in themes, including exploring unknown wilderness territories to candid and intimate portraits of real-life subjects.

Life and career

Rivers studied fine art at Falmouth University. His practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. Rivers often employs analogue media and hand develops 16mm film, which shows the evidence of the elements it has been exposed to – the materiality of this medium forming part of the narrative.
Rivers's first feature-length film, Two Years at Sea, was presented in September 2011 in the Orizzonti section at the 68th Venice International Film Festival and won the FIPRESCI International Critics prize.
His second feature, A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness, was made in collaboration with American filmmaker Ben Russell, a frequent collaborator, and premiered at Locarno Film Festival 2013.
His feature films are distributed in the United Kingdom by SODA Pictures, Cinema Guild and KimStim in North America.
Rivers is represented by Kate MacGarry Gallery, London. His most recent feature directed in collaboration with Thai filmmaker Anocha Suwichakornpong premiered at Locarno Film Festival.

Shows

Artist-in-focus screenings and retrospectives include Courtisane Festival; Pesaro International Film Festival; London Film Festival; Tirana Film Festival; Punto de Vista Pamplona; and Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Awards