First Look: 'Alex Wheatle' From Steve McQueen's 'Small Axe' BBC/Amazon Anthology (Exclusive)

NEW YORK -- In a movie year mostly lacking big, ambitious releases, Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology is an unqualified main event. While many other filmmakers are on hold, the “12 Years a Slave” director has raced to finish not one but five new films.The movies, spanning 1968 to 1985, are each individual stories about the West Indian community in London.

who passed away from colon cancer in August, will be starring in Netflix‘s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom opposite Viola Davis.The film adapts August Wilson’s 1984 play of the same name, focusing on Ma Rainey, a Southern singer (Davis), and her trumpeter Levee (Boseman) as they navigate the music industry in 1920’s Chicago.On working with Boseman, Denzel Washington, who produced the film, told the New York Times: “He did a brilliant job, and he’s gone.

Naman Ramachandran BBC Studios sells Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe”; ZDF commissions natural history series “Africa From Above”; “Married at First Sight” gets live wedding; ITV orders game-show format “Game of Talents”; travel format “Heads and Tails” goes to Spain; Jellyfish promotes Natalie Llewellyn; German Film Office opens in New York; and Monte-Carlo TV Festival sets 2021 dates.BBC Studios has secured several global pre-sales for Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen‘

A West Indian proverb holds, “If you are the big tree, we are the small axe.” “Lovers Rock,” the first film made available of Steve McQueen’s Amazon miniseries “Small Axe,” first interpreted the saying as a metaphor for the joyous spirit in the Black British community. But his newest installment, “Mangrove” swings a different emphasis on the rebellious phrase.

Todd McCarthy If Lovers Rock provided a sensuous, feel-good vibe to the opening night of this year’s unusual New York Film Festival, Mangrove supplies a follow-up thwack to the head and punch to the gut.

Lovers Rock, one of the five films in Steve McQueen's Small Axe anthology drama series for the BBC/Amazon about London's West Indian Community, has been added to this year's BFI London Film Festival. The film —starring newcomer Amarah-Jae St Aubyn and BAFTA Rising Star winner Micheal Ward (Blue Story) —will be one of the few films given a physical-only screening at the BFI Southbank, which much of the festival moved online due to the ongoing pandemic.

Also Read: 'One Night in Miami': Regina King Opens Up About Directing 4 Men Portraying Real-Life Icons (Video)Boyega and Wright’s entries were featured at this year’s New York Film Festival, which was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new trailer for a collection of films made by Steve McQueen gives a glimpse at the performances of Letitia Wright and John Boyega.

“If you are the big tree, we are the small axe,” states a Jamaican proverb, inspiring the title of “Small Axe”, an upcoming anthology series from director Steve McQueen for Amazon Prime Video.

“If you are the big tree, we are the small axe,” this is the Jamaican proverb that has inspired filmmaker Steve McQueen‘s, “Small Axe,” a collection of five films inspired by real-life events about ordinary people showing courage, belief, and resilience to overcome injustice and achieve something transformative in their West Indian community.

Earlier in the week, the 2020 incarnation of the New York Film Festival got underway officially, with one part of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, Lovers Rock, serving as the Opening Night Selection. Having seen it, the movie serves as both a strong start for NYFF this year, as well as a smaller and far less awards friendly selection.

 Alec Baldwin  might portray a politician on TV, but if his wife  Hilaria Baldwin  gets her way, he won’t ever run for office. The dad of six opened up about his political aspirations during an appearance on Rob Lowe’s Literally!  podcast.

Like most aspects of life, the New York Film Festival looks a little different this year, switching to a mostly virtual format in light of the pandemic.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIn the most transporting scene of Steve McQueen’s “Lovers Rock,” we’re at a London house party that has just hit its smoky seductive dirty-dancing groove. It’s 1980, and most of the revelers have West Indian roots.

Todd McCarthy Watching Lovers Rock is akin to going to see Romeo and Juliet and only staying through the first act, to departing a basketball game after the first quarter, to sipping the soup and skipping the rest of the meal. A mere wisp of a thing, Steve McQueen’s 68-minute feature, the only fictional section of a five-film anthology called Small Axe about London’s West Indian community between the late 1960s and 1980, steeps you in the atmosphere and music of the latter date.

Also Read: Steve McQueen's 'Lovers Rock' Set as New York Film Festival Opening Night FilmCinematographer Shabier Kirchner (“Skate Kitchen”) gets us so close to the action that we’re reminded of why students at Catholic high-school dances are always admonished to leave room for the Holy Spirit.This is very much an ensemble piece, introducing us to various members of London’s West Indian community, but our protagonist is Martha (Amarah-Jae St.

As his “Lover’s Rock” opens the New York Film Festival, Steve McQueen says he’s delighted to return to the festival seven years after “12 Years A Slave”.

Amanda N'Duka pmc-editorial-managerEXCLUSIVE: New York Times best-selling cookbook author, host, and lifestyle influencer Ayesha Curry has announced her new television and film production company, Sweet July Productions, which has entered a first-look deal for unscripted television with eOne.In addition, the newly formed company has hired Tiffany Nicholson-Horton to serve as the Executive Vice President and Head of Development for scripted and unscripted content. Sweet July aims is to empower a

Mike Fleming Jr Co-Editor-in-Chief, FilmEXCLUSIVE: After blazing on the London art scene with work that won him the Turner Prize, Steve McQueen established himself as an important filmmaker who showed the unbreakable spirit of an Irish hunger strike in Hunger, and the horrors of antebellum slavery in 12 Years A Slave.