Open City Docs Fest is a live festival devoted to exploring the world we live in through the vision of documentary film.

 Open City Docs Fest 2013 takes place from June 20-23 across multiple London venues.

Every event is a 'live' event at Open City Docs Fest with filmmaker Q&As, film and subject panel discussions, live scores, comedy, theatre, guided documentary walks, live music, food, workshops for industry and public - this is where the filmmakers meet their audience.

Highlights of this year’s festival include:

● A Grand Jury chaired by Jeremy Irons

● The international premiere of Baltimore doc The 12 O’Clock Boys at the Opening Gala

● The director’s cut of acclaimed film The Act Of Killing, alongside a masterclass with its director

● The hotly anticipated Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer doc

● A screening of the Cannes­accoladed film Sofia’s Last Ambulance

Spanning four­days (20­-23 June 2013), this year’s Open City Docs programme of 100+ films includes world premieres, exceptional masterclasses and a grand jury of award­winning directors, producers and authors. The festival takes place at numerous venues across London including the Open City Docs’ special cinema tent, The Bloomsbury Theatre, The Hackney Picturehouse, and venues around University College London campus.

Open City Docs Fest nurtures the next generation of filmmaker by running workshops and screenings throughout the year across London, and is highly accessible ­ tickets start from just £6. Bold programming includes a discussion on the rise of interactive docs, a focus on where drama meets documentary and films from every corner of the globe.

This year, the festival will open with The 12 O’Clock Boys, a fast­paced and dangerous coming­of­age story from Baltimore. It focuses on Pug, a 13 year­old boy, whose sole ambition is to join the infamous 12 O’Clock Boys biker gang. While the bikers invade the Baltimore inner­city streets, the police are forbidden to chase them, for fear of endangering the public. The screening will be followed by live music from DVA and an opening night party.

The Act Of Killing is sure to become one of the festival’s biggest talking points and has already been dubbed 2013’s most controversial film. It’s a deeply troubling film with the potential to change how audiences think and feel about cinema, focusing on the gangsters who slaughtered communists in a 1965  massacre in Indonesia, documenting their killings through bizarre narrative cinema. The screening is part of Open City Docs’ The Theatre Of The Oppressor strand of films ­ a fresh perspective on a major trend in international documentary this year. The festival welcomes the director to London for an exclusive masterclass on cinema, trauma and memory.

Open City Docs is screening the much­anticipated Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer at The Bloomsbury Theatre at this year’s festival, bringing the sheer devastating power of their art to life and illuminating the ongoing political struggles in the domains of gender and social equality.

The festival will end with Sofia’s Last Ambulance by Bulgarian director, Ilian Metev. This documentary won the France 4 Visionary Award at Cannes in 2012, and whose unlikely heroes save lives against all the odds, while chain­smoking and filling their days with their own brand of humour. Using an unorthodox creative form and avoiding all trace of sensationalism, this film asks how long they can continue to come to the sick and injured’s rescue, through the voices, sounds and lights of one of Sofia’s last ambulances.

See the full programme here.