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: Pegah Ahangarani

Year: 2026

Through five portraits of relatives and mentors, five expressions of resistance, director Pegah Ahangarani sketches her life story. Drawing from personal archives, home videos, street protests footage, newspapers, and recorded voices, she retraces more than 40 years of Iran’s history. From the early days of 1979, until the war that began in 2026, she pieces together intimate and collective memories, forming the portrait of a country shaped by political repression and in constant hope for a revolution. Official Selection Cannes Film Festival 2026 - Special Screenings Official Selection Telluride Film Festival 2026