Peterloo (film) Peterloo (film) Peterloo is a 2018 British historical drama, directed and written by Mike Leigh, based on the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. The film was selected to be screened in the main competition section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival. The film received its UK premiere on 17 October 2018, as part of the BFI London Film Festival, in Manchester. The screening marks the first time the festival has held a premiere outside London. Leigh said he was delighted that "Peterloo" would be premiered "where it happened." It was released in the United Kingdom on 2 November 2018, by
Peterloo Massacre horrified by the carnage. One of the casualties, Oldham cloth-worker and ex-soldier John Lees, who died from his wounds on 9 September, had been present at the Battle of Waterloo. Shortly before his death he said to a friend that he had never been in such danger as at Peterloo: "At Waterloo there was man to man but there it was downright murder." When news of the massacre began to spread, the population of Manchester and surrounding districts was horrified and outraged. After the events at Peterloo, many commemorative items such as plates, jugs, handkerchiefs and medals were produced; they