‘Small Axe: Mangrove’ Film Review: Steve McQueen Exposes the Police Brutality of the Past, and the Present

Small Axe anthology on the BBC have been revealed.Mangrove, the first of five original films, will premiere on BBC One and iPlayer on November 15.

Steve McQueen helped raise the curtain on the 2020 BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday night, with his feature Mangrove — one of his five films in the BBC/Amazon Small Axe anthology — getting its European premiere in London and simultaneously across select cinemas around the U.K.

Two years after opening the BFI London Film Festival with his all-star crime thriller Widows, London-born Steve McQueen again has been given curtain-raising honors. Mangrove — which tells the real-life story of the city’s Black activists who became known as the Mangrove 9 after their historic 1970 trial, the first to expose racial prejudice within the Metropolitan Police — will kick off the event Oct.

Jake Kanter International TV EditorIt’s been more than six years in the making, but Steve McQueen’s anthology drama Small Axe finally has a date for when it will land on British TV screens.The BBC has announced that it will premiere the five-part series on November 15 on BBC One and iPlayer.

Todd McCarthy Red, White and Blue, the third and final installment of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe quintet of films about racial issues specific to Great Britain being world premiered at the New York Film Festival, zeroes in on the ordeal of a young black Londoner set on helping to definitively break the color barrier at London’s Metropolitan Police Force in the early 1980s.

One of the great joys of the New York Film Festival has been watching Steve McQueen’s new film anthology “Small Axe.” Composed of five works set between the late-’60s and early-’80s, the two recently screened films — “Lovers Rock” and “Mangrove” — are intimate slices of life of a little-represented community, British Black folks from the West Indies, resiliently thriving amidst a racially hostile environment.

One of the great joys of the New York Film Festival has been watching Steve McQueen’s new film anthology “Small Axe.” Composed of five works set between the late-’60s and early-’80s, the two recently screened films — “Lovers Rock” and “Mangrove” — are intimate slices of life of a little-represented community, British Black folks from the West Indies, resiliently thriving amidst a racially hostile environment.

Watch Video: 'Small Axe' Trailer: John Boyega, Letitia Wright Tackle London Racism in Anthology SeriesAlso cheering on his consideration of police work are Leroy’s “auntie,” a family friend who has worked for years as a liaison between the police and the city’s West Indian population, and Leroy’s wife Gretl (Antonia Thomas, “The Good Doctor”), who playfully but honestly tells him that he’s the kind of person who wants people to witness him at his job, and that he’s a sucker for a snappy

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‘

Jake Kanter International TV EditorBBC Studios has closed a raft of global deals for Steve McQueen’s hotly-anticipated anthology drama Small Axe, which will premiere on BBC One in the UK and Amazon in the U.S.Australia’s Foxtel, France’s Salto, Spain’s Movistar+, Russia’s KinoPoisk, and Greece’s Cosmote TV are among the territories to have picked up the show.

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.

Naman Ramachandran Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut “The Human Voice” and British artist Steve McQueen’s “Lovers Rock” have been added to the British Film Institute London Film Festival.Almodovar’s short, loosely based on Jean Cocteau’s play, presents a woman on the edge portrayed by Tilda Swinton, who is waiting for her lover to call. It will play in the festival’s shorts program, and screen at BFI Southbank on Oct.

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.

Lovers Rock, another instalment in Sir Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, has been added to the line-up of the BFI London Film Festival.

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.