NO IFS OR BUTS
90 minute documentary
BFI London Film Festival, 2018

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“This ebullient documentary about trend-setting Soho hair salon Cuts also serves as a reminder of how pre-gentrification London was fertile ground for multicultural DIY creativity.……….Filming on and off for 20 years, director Sarah Lewis delivers a vital portrait of Soho barbershop Cuts – not just a place to get your hair trimmed, but a space for street fashion and pop innovators. Guided by freewheeling founders James Lebon and Steve Brooks, who met when one was a rockabillyand the other a New Romantic, the salon moved from early ’80s post-punk roots to become a hip-hop club and communal hub for DJs, photographers and style icons. Weaving colourful footage with interview snippets – familiar faces include Boy George, Neneh Cherry, junglist Goldie and regular customer Isaac Julien – No Ifs or Buts highlights the subcultural strands that once grew in the heart of our city.” Manish Agarwal (London Film Festival, 2018)

“Lewis’s film is an intriguing look at the dance between damage and creativity in a very British context, capturing the mania and naivety of that period when Thatcherism segued into the Cool Britannia of the Blair years…..It’s a fitting irony that an immigrant has cast her lens on this period before the tsunami of global capital and talent crashed into London, washing its previous inhabitants and way of life to the sidelines. The historical value of Lewis’s film should not be overlooked.” Guardian, Oct 2018

“Sarah Lewis’s film captures the hedonism, creativity and confidence of a young multicultural scene, but also many of its members’ descents into drug addiction, mental health issues and even suicide. It’s a look at an extended heyday, but also an examination of the price that’s often paid for living life at full throttle.”  AnOther Man, Oct 2018

“In ‘No Ifs or Buts’, Lewis captures the salon’s distinct energy and uses it to make subtle but effective comments on human connection.” Time Out, Oct 2018

Image by Mark Lebon