ESPN Laying Off 300 Staff Amid "Unprecedented Disruption"

It is a film or is it TV? That’s the micro-debate happening on Film Twitter right now over Steve McQueen‘s new project “Small Axe.” Often, these arguments are so byzantine, they’re not worth spending a breath on and we peace out on the whole topic and let others fight over it. But Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” seems simple: Yes, it’s premiering on Amazon Prime and yes, it’s vying for Emmy consideration in the end, not the Oscars.

Jessica Kiang War is blood and bombs and politics, but not in Alina Gorlova’s fascinating, fraught documentary “This Rain Will Never Stop.” Elliptically following 20-year-old Andriy Suleiman, a student Red Cross worker who “left one war for another” when his family fled Hasukah, Syria for his mother’s hometown of Lysychansk, Ukraine, this defiantly oblique, uncannily composed film instead reduces actual conflict to a dully thunderous, far-off roar.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor“Mangrove,” now streaming on Amazon Prime, is the first in the five-part anthology, “Small Axe” by director Steve McQueen. Spanning two decades, the films are standalones tracing the West Indian experience with reggae music and costume tying all five films together.Costume designer Jacqueline Durran oversaw all five films, while individual designers worked on each installment.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticIf last week was a big one for Netflix (what with “Mank” and “Hillbilly Elegy” out in theaters), then this one belongs to Amazon, who have a pair of big projects launching via their Prime Video subscription service.

Edward Norton on Friday hypothesized about Donald Trump's endgame in his continued fight to overturn the 2020 election that Joe Biden was projected as winning. Trump has cast numerous aspersions on the election process — but has yet to offer solid evidence of widespread wrongdoing.

Presenter Jeremy Kyle may have contributed or caused the death of one of the contestants on his eponymous daytime show, a coroner has said. Steve Dymond died of a morphine overdose and heart problem at his home in Portsmouth, after appearing on The Jeremy Kyle Show and taking a lie detector test.

Andreas Wiseman International EditorEXCLUSIVE: Historian William Dalrymple and journalist Anita Anand’s well-received history book Koh-i-Noor: The History Of The World’s Most Infamous Diamond has been optioned for a TV drama series adaptation by Paris, LA and Mumbai-based producers 185 Carat Films.The book charts the winding true story of the Indian diamond, the 27th largest in the world, which is currently part of the British Crown Jewels.

First, there were reports of tension between the 22-year-old’s paternal grandfather Bob and her mum Terri, and then Bindi was alleged to be feuding with her cousin Rebecca Lobie.

Peter White Television EditorEXCLUSIVE: Libby Geist, one of the architects of ESPN’s growing documentary business and exec producer of The Last Dance and O.J: Made In America, is leaving the Disney-owned sports network.Deadline understands that Geist, who is Vice President and Executive Producer, ESPN Films and Original Content, will work through to the end of 2020.

Yesterday, U.K. audiences got their first official taste of “Small Axe,” Steve McQueen‘s new film anthology series that comprised of five original films set from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s that tell personal stories from London’s West Indian community, whose lives have been shaped by their own force of will despite rampant racism and discrimination.

Steve McQueen has commented on the British film and TV industry’s failure to embrace its Black talent.The 12 Years a Slave director made the comments ahead of his groundbreaking new film series, Small Axe, premiering on BBC One on 15 November.When asked by David Hare of Homeland fame, in a Guardian piece, why British Black actors continue to have to look to America in order to further their careers, McQueen said of the UK industry: “Because they didn’t care enough. That’s it, really.

Alex Jones is one of the nicest people in showbusiness.

A high school which has suffered from anti-social behaviour, trespassing and vandalism – as well as some students absconding – is set to fence off its fields.Fred Longworth High School in Tyldesley has been given the go ahead to erect fences, more than two metres tall, around the perimeters of its playing fields.This includes new fencing around Hope Park, where some areas of open space and sports courts have been leased to the high school for over nine years now.The dark green fencing would link