The LexiCinema

The Lexi Cinema occupies a converted Edwardian building on Chamberlayne Road that once housed a pool club and, before that, a community theatre. Sally Wilton founded it in 2008 after being struck by the neighbourliness shown in Kensal Rise following a 2006 tornado, funding the conversion from the proceeds of selling her own business. It operates as the UK's first social enterprise cinema, with a legal covenant committing 100 per cent of distributable profits to the Sustainability Institute, an ecological education project near Cape Town. A team of around fifty local volunteers keeps the operation running day to day alongside paid staff. The programme mixes new releases with arthouse and foreign-language titles, plus regular relaxed and captioned screenings. The building retains touches of its Edwardian shell rather than a full multiplex refit, keeping the two screens modest in scale.