Cuts, More Than Just A Haircut

Director: Sarah Lewis

Year: 2025

Filmed over a 25-year period, CUTS, NO IFS OR BUTS delivers a vital portrait of the low-key, yet world-famous London barbershop ‘Cuts’ – not just a place to get your hair styled but a space for street fashion and pop innovators. Guided by freewheeling founders James Lebon and Steve Brooks who met when one was a Rockerbilly and the other a New Romantic, the salon moved from early 80s post punk roots to become a communal hub for DJs, photographers and style icons, an influencer in the analogue age. The film allows us to bear witness to the passing of time and the profound and often tragic personal change in the hairdressers' lives within the wider context of change in the UK's political and cultural landscape. It highlights the themes of family and creativity and is an anthem of the promise of youth and the friendships that endure (or not) over a lifetime.

Director: Sarah Lewis

Year: 2018

Filmed over a 22 year period, NO IFS OR BUTS delivers a portrait of Soho barbershop, Cuts, an iconic London hub for street fashion and pop innovators. Guided by freewheeling founders James Lebon and Steve Brooks, who met when one was a rockabilly and the other a New Romantic, the salon moved from early ’80s postpunk roots to become a hip-hop club and communal hub for DJs, photographers and style icons. But the film "is not just about the haircut", delivering an intimate portrait of Steve struggling with a traumatic past that threatens to derail the Cuts universe. The film traces profound and often tragic change in the hairdressers' lives within the wider context of the UK's political and cultural landscape- an anthem to the promise of youth and the friendships that endure over a lifetime. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - World premiere

Director: Jake J Smith

Year: 2026

For the first time in 30 years, a film crew gains rare access to Pennsylvania’s maximum-security women’s prisons. Inside, The Lady Lifers – a band led by former soul singer Naomi Blount – turn grief into music and defiance. Though Naomi never took a life, she is serving life without parole. To have any hope of freedom, she must express guilt she does not feel – a cruel paradox of the justice system. As her music echoes beyond the prison walls and reaches the public, lawmakers and activists, the question remains: Will her voice be enough to finally set her free - and to free those she left behind? Official Selection Durban International Film Festival 2026