Ben Rivers is an artist and filmmaker from Somerset, now based in London. He studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art before co-founding the Brighton Cinematheque in 1996, which he programmed for a decade. His films sit in a compelling space between documentary and fiction, often following people who have separated themselves from society in some way, and imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. Working with hand-processed 16mm film and near-antique cameras, the physical texture of the medium is inseparable from the storytelling. His relationship with Encounters stretches back to 2005 and a screening of his short film, We The People. His debut feature Two Years at Sea, an intimate portrait of hermit Jake Williams in the Scottish Highlands, won the FIPRESCI Prize at Venice in 2011. He has since made features including A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness (co-directed with Ben Russell, Locarno 2013), Bogancloch (a return to Jake Williams, Locarno 2024), and Mare's Nest, which won the Pardo Verde at Locarno in 2025. His work has been exhibited at galleries and festivals worldwide, with solo shows in Milan, Chicago, Hamburg, London and a full retrospective at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. Rivers has created around 40 short and feature films across a prolific career that moves freely between the cinema and the gallery.
