Urban Lab Films: Cities of Sleep

For the two million plus homeless in Delhi, securing a safe sleeping spot can often become a question of life and death. Sleep exerts a tremendous social and political pressure on the homeless in India's capital, where a safe sleeping spot has become a financial transaction run by a "sleep mafia" who step in where the government fail to provide.

Thanks to a partnership between UCL and Bertha DocHouse at the Curzon Bloomsbury, the award-winning documentary 'Cities of Sleep' comes to London for a special one-off screening with the director Shaunak Sen and a panel of experts on homelessness, sleep and health in Delhi and London.

In a year of cultural celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of Indian independence, the panel will consider how cities with shared histories, yet divergent trajectories of urbanisation can act as compelling entry points for comparison, intervention and knowledge exchange - especially at a point when London itself hosts over 8,000 rough sleepers per year.