Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month

Battle of Soho
Take a journey through London's most notorious district, meeting residents and campaigners at the forefront of a battle to keep its eccentric, diverse spirit alive.
Documentary 2017 100 mins
Director: Aro Korol
Overview
Filmmaker Aro Korol takes us on a journey through a changing Soho, in this love letter to London's most notorious district, meeting the residents and campaigners at the forefront of a battle to keep its eccentric, diverse spirit alive. Featuring the last film performance by ground-breaking dancer, mime artist and choreographer Lindsay Kemp.
Following the closure of burlesque nightclub Madame Jojo's in 2014, and the emergence of vast infrastructure projects like Crossrail, there is now growing concern about the irreversible damage being done to Soho's nonconformist nature. Eschewing archive footage, Korol concentrates on Soho's characters; the outsiders and eccentrics who've helped define its history. They guide us through Soho's colourful past, and illustrate the contemporary issues raised by widespread gentrification and renewal. Korol's documentary is ultimately as freeform, unorthodox and delirious in character as the district itself, while imparting a serious message around the dispersal of diverse class communities and the loss of key LGBT community spaces.

Related
Documentary

A Cambodian Spring
Documentary 2017 127 mins Director: Chris Kelly
Filmed over 6 years, Chris Kelly's BAFTA-nominated documentary follows the lives of three people caught up in violent land-rights protests, in this illuminating record of a neglected tragedy.

New Town Utopia
Documentary 2017 81 mins Director: Christopher Ian Smith
From Utopian dreams to concrete realities; charting the challenging, funny, and sometimes tragic story of the British new town of Basildon, Essex.

Island of the Hungry Ghosts
Documentary 2018 98 mins Director: Gabrielle Brady
A therapist helps traumatised refugees detained on a remote island where powerful natural and tribal rituals prevail, in this extraordinary mix of fact and fiction.

Why We Fight
Documentary 2004 99 mins Director: Eugene Jarecki
An unflinching and award-winning look at the anatomy of American war-making.

A Northern Soul
Documentary 2018 73 mins Director: Sean McAllister
Acclaimed filmmaker Sean McAllister (A Syrian Love Story) returns to his hometown of Hull to profile local resident Steve Arnott, a struggling warehouse worker who harbours his own creative dream of breaking into hip-hop.

Even When I Fall
Documentary 2017 89 mins Director: Sky Neal
The inspiring and fascinating story of two child-trafficking survivors who form Nepal’s first and only circus; an ode to survival and the healing power of performance.
London

Welcome to Britain
Documentary 1976 73 mins Director: Ben Lewin
Ben Lewin’s 1976 film captures a moment in Britain's evergreen immigration debate, focusing on new arrivals at Heathrow as they wrestle with immigration law.

The Elephant Man
Biopic 1980 124 mins Director: David Lynch
David Lynch's moving true-life tale of the severely deformed Joseph Merrick and his rescue from the hell of a Victorian circus sideshow.

Face
Crime 1997 101 mins Director: Antonia Bird
Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone are members of a criminal gang that tears itself apart after a heist goes wrong, in Antonia Bird’s stylish thriller.

The Day the Earth Caught Fire
Science Fiction 1961 100 mins Director: Val Guest
The BFI’s new HD remaster of the British sci-fi classic. A journalist discovers that the Earth has been knocked off its axis and is moving ever closer to the sun. Is the Earth doomed?

Quatermass and the Pit
Horror 1967 94 mins Director: Roy Ward Baker
One of Britain’s finest sci-fi films, based on Nigel Kneale’s masterful script, about the discovery of ancient alien craft beneath central London.

Nightbirds
Drama 1970 78 mins Director: Andy Milligan
Dark drama about the doomed relationship of two down-and-outers living in the squalid East End of London in the early 1970s.
New

Sunflower
Drama 1969 112 mins Director: Vittorio De Sica
Sophia Loren searches for the husband she lost at the Russian Front (Marcello Mastroianni) in this sweeping romance epic with echoes of Doctor Zhivago.

L'innocente
Period drama 1976 130 mins Director: Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti's final film is a brilliant and disturbing drama set against the opulent backdrop of decadent, late 19th-century aristocracy.

Two Women
War 1960 100 mins Director: Vittorio De Sica
Sophia Loren won an Oscar® for her performance as a mother trying to protect her daughter in wartime Italy, in Vittorio De Sica's neorealist classic.

L'avventura
Drama 1960 137 mins Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Antonioni’s masterpiece of modern alienation, with Monica Vitti as the young woman searching for her friend who's inexplicably disappeared.

La Dolce Vita
Drama 1960 175 mins Director: Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini’s masterpiece depicting seven hedonistic days in the life of a tabloid journalist (Marcello Mastroianni) as he searches for the sweet life.

The Battle of Algiers
Drama 1966 121 mins Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece about the last years of French colonial rule in Algeria, seen from the perspective of both the revolutionaries and the French authorities.