Channel 4 to show 'Clapham Junction' film

Channel 4 will launch a season on homosexuality and homophobia in the summer, with the centre piece being a film charting a day and night in the life of seven gay men who frequent Clapham Common.

Clapham Junction, written by Kevin Elyot, will feature graphic scenes of sex as well as attacks on gay men on the common in south London. Leading actors including Mark Strong, Rupert Graves and Benedict Cumberbatch are currently being linked to the project.

Documentaries about homophobia and the history of homosexuality are also planned, including a dramatic reconstruction of a man being tried in the 1960s for his sexuality.

Eylot, who wrote the Olivier award-winning play My Night with Reg, which portrayed a group of gay men dealing with Aids, told The Guardian that the disturbing amount of homophobic violence and homophobic attitudes, including the murder of 24-year-old barman Jody Dobrowski on Clapham Common in 2005, led him to write the film.

Dobrowski was punched and kicked to death by two men on the way home from a friend's house and was so badly injured that his family could not identify him.

Channel 4 will show the film in August to mark the passing of the Sexual Offences Act which decriminalised homosexuality between two people aged 21.