Soho Nights
2025 · 1m · United Kingdom
Directed by Morgan Powell
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, theatrical
A living memoir of after-hours Soho: vivid observational vignettes capturing the eccentric soul of a recently gentrified, once red-light district, where provocative history still glitters around the old market area.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A one-minute essay on gentrification that *could* be subversive, but it's dressed up in too much aesthetic reverence—Powell's playing it safe with the 'melancholic memoir' angle when the real provocation would be to actually wrestle with what Soho's lost, not just glitter over it.
Powell situates this firmly in the lineage of the London essay film—there's a clear conversation with psychogeography and urban elegy here—and the formal restraint of a one-minute runtime forces exquisite editorial choices that feel considered and earned, not rushed.
The decision to let observational vignettes breathe without voiceover narration is what holds this together; that choice—letting the theatrical remnants of Soho speak through juxtaposition alone—transforms what could be nostalgia into something genuinely strange and affecting.
Reviews
Soho is a recently gentrified, once red light district, while some provocative history still glitters around the old market area. I love Soho. I have been in Soho for over 16 years- we have a studio called Seed on Brewer Street, and our windows overlook life passing by.