Cinemas

London's cinemas worth crossing town for: the repertory and arthouse houses, the picture palaces kept going, the one IMAX, and the rooms above pubs and behind bars where the programme is somebody's taste. What is showing is listed under each cinema, and in What's On.

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The Lexi Cinema

London's only social enterprise cinema: volunteers on the door, and the profits go to a project in South Africa.

New releasesCommunity-run & members

A freak tornado tore through Kensal Rise on 7 December 2006 and the neighbourhood pulled together afterwards; the cinema came out of that. Its founder already had a connection to the Sustainability Institute at Lynedoch in South Africa and built the Lexi as a bridge between the two places - an arts space here, funded by ticket sales, sending money there, while Lynedoch advised on how to build the thing greenly. The site, found on Boxing Day 2007, was a derelict pool club in an Edwardian hall that had once been a community theatre. It opened in September 2008 with a street party and I AM A CINEMA. LOVE ME. painted across the front, which is still there.

It is the only cinema in London whose front of house is run entirely by volunteers, and more than four hundred people have done it. The programme is new releases and independent film with a steady set of strands around them: a seniors' film club, baby-friendly and relaxed screenings, family films, Black History Studies, a Japanese film club, and National Theatre and Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.

Where
194b Chamberlayne Road, NW10 3JU
Nearest station
Kensal Rise · 5 min walk

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

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