Project Detail

The Street

Synopsis

As the glinting steel and mirror-glass skyscrapers of London’s financial hub edge ever closer, the area surrounding Hoxton Street has been transformed by hyper-gentrification and sky-high property prices. A traditional East London street less than a mile from the City of London – it is now the last bastion of the areas disadvantaged – a concentration of the aged, poor and dispossessed. Hoxton Street’s close-knit working-class community has absorbed waves of immigrants since the 1950s. But as traditional industry has withered, the latest influx of young urban hipsters followed closely by expensive restaurants, digital media start-ups and corporate property developers has brought a deepening sense of inequality. Sensing they have been left out of the changes swirling around them, the street’s ageing white residents, who lament the loss of their jobs and former ways of life, mirror the 52% of Britons who voted to leave the EU.
Focusing on one street and its inhabitants over a four-year period, and set against the upheavals of rapid gentrification, years of austerity, the fallout from Grenfell and the eruption of Brexit, the film offers a revealing portrait of life in London today.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Debate Strand - World premiere

Details

Year: 2019
Type of project: Features
Running time: 94 min
Format: HD
Director: Zed Nelson 1st Feature
Producer: Zed Nelson
Executive Producer: Christo Hird
Editor: Julian Rodd; Online Editor: Gareth Parry
Director of Photography: Zed Nelson
Sound: Sound Designer and Re-recording Mixer: Markus Moll; Additional Location Sound Recordings: Michael Griggs
Composer: Rachel Portman, Idris Rahman, Tom Kincaid, Colin Allen
Co-Director Hackney Marshes scenes: Pinny Grylls