Key Points
- Location & Environment: Located on Lower Clapton Road in east London, the store named Ümit & Son is a unique physical archive and collection of film memorabilia and other items from the twentieth-century films and movies.
- The Owner: Film buff and a former grocer Ümit Mesut runs the shop for over 35 years due to his unquenchable thirst for preserving physical film.
- The Secret Micro-Cinema: Behind the red curtain at the back of the store, there is a handmade micro-cinema having capacity of 15 people that comes with authentic 16mm film projectors.
- Creative Collaborations: This store along with its film-related projects was made possible by creative collaboration with the filmmaker Liam Saint-Pierre who had come into the shop initially to get his Super 8 film projector fixed.
- Media Coverage: As seen in the visual features of lifestyle sites like Secret London, and also through the in-depth articles in magazines such as The Guardian and Atlas Obscura, the space is an example of a dying art-form that has found a new life in the age of streaming media.
London (The Londoner News) September 1, 2025 – Tucked away on a bustling urban stretch of east London, a unassuming storefront serves as the physical guardian of a bygone cinematic era, capturing the imagination of digital-age cinephiles through a rare, hidden micro-cinema and a colossal archive of analogue film history.
What Makes Ümit & Son A Unique East London Landmark?
If one takes a casual stroll down Lower Clapton Road, it is remarkably easy to completely walk past Ümit & Son, as its peeling façade melts away quietly between brightly-lit modern fast-food joints and commercial shops. However, as noted in reports by The Guardian, stepping past the threshold reveals a cinematic Aladdin’s cave where the floor space is squeezed into a narrow path flanked by towering stacks of film paraphernalia, vintage tape cassettes, fading posters, and decades-old media.
As documented by features on Secret London and further detailed by Atlas Obscura, the store is fundamentally a manifestation of a man’s lifelong devotion to the medium of film. Ümit Mesut, the proprietor who has run the shop for over 35 years after transitioning away from his former life as a grocer, has packed every square inch of the interior with reminders of twentieth-century projection. As reported by The Guardian, visitor shelves groan under the weight of items ranging from Only Fools and Horses VHS cassettes to rare canisters containing original prints of cinematic classics like King Kong, Metropolis, and Citizen Kane, all accompanied by a scrawled handwritten sign declaring:
“VIDEO + FILM IS ALIVE AND WELL IN HACKNEY”.
How Was The Secret Back-Room Cinema Created?
While the front of the shop operates as a retail space for physical media, collectors’ items, and digitization services, the true crown jewel sits completely hidden from public view. As reported by The Guardian, Ümit Mesut pulls back a simple red curtain at the very rear of his store to reveal a room so meticulously formed in miniature that it resembles a life-sized doll’s house: a 15-seat, velvet-lined auditorium painted rich theatre-red, complete with Tiffany wall lamps, a front screen, and a vintage 16mm film projector humming quietly at the back.
When speaking about his motivations for building the space, Ümit Mesut stated to The Guardian:
“Film has been in my blood for about 55 years now, and one thing I’ve always wanted is my own cinema.”
He further added regarding audience reception in an age dominated by digital formats:
“When I started this, I thought: who’s going to turn up to watch a film on a 60-year-old projector that might be in black and white and have subtitles? But they do because there’s hardly anyone left who’s presenting film as it’s meant to be presented.”
Who Is The Creative Force Behind The Collaboration?
The survival and cultural evolution of this east London institution are heavily tied to an unlikely partnership that blossomed a little over a decade ago. According to accounts by The Guardian and Time Out London, filmmaker Liam Saint-Pierre—who grew up in Blackburn—initially walked into the shop as an NHS physiotherapist carrying an old Super 8 projector he had salvaged from a bin. Mesut successfully coaxed him into purchasing an upgraded 16mm model, sparking an enduring creative alliance.
In 2013, Liam Saint-Pierre directed a critically acclaimed short documentary about the shop titled The Way of the Dodo, which clinched the award for Best Short Documentary at the Barcelona Film Festival and injected fresh national and international awareness into Mesut’s enterprise. Following this success, the duo expanded their grassroots operations by co-founding Ciné-Real, an independent project resurrecting old 16mm projections for weekly public and private screenings across east London venues like the Castle Cinema in Clapton.
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Why Is Analogue Film Making A Cultural Comeback?
In an era where streaming giants dominate household entertainment and traditional video rental stores have long since vanished, the endurance of Ümit & Son offers a fascinating sociological counter-narrative. As observed by lifestyle journalists reporting for Time Out London and Secret London, the shop has successfully transitioned from merely clinging to survival to actively thriving amidst a wider cultural appetite for tangible, physical media—mirrored by parallel revivals in vinyl records and vintage cine cameras.
Despite facing immense economic pressures, multiple recessions, creeping local gentrification, and a brush with closure during the COVID-19 pandemic—which saw Mesut hospitalised in 2020—the shop remains an essential cultural hub for younger generations of east London cineastes. Reflecting on the pressures of property developers and commercial homogenization in the capital, Ümit Mesut noted to The Guardian when asked about potential offers to sell the space:
“People ask me if I want to sell. What would they put here, another chicken shop?”
Ultimately, as highlighted across multimedia features and video journalism by Secret London, the hidden cinema inside Ümit & Son stands as a testament to uncompromising passion. It preserves the mechanical heartbeat of cinema history, proving that authentic film projection retains an irreplaceable magic capable of uniting modern communities over the shared glow of a 16mm silver screen.
