Director Steve McQueen and actor John Boyega on the set of
Small Axe
Small Axe, British filmmaker and artist
Steve McQueen will re-team with the BBC for a new three-part documentary entitled
Uprising.
Co-directed by producer
James Rogan, the new series will focus on three important events all taking place in the year 1981: the January 1981 New Cross Fire, a fire at a party in the South London suburb that killed 13 young people; the Black People’s Day of Action two months later, the first organised protest by Black Britons, with 20,000 people flooding the streets; and the April Brixton riots, also known as the Brixton uprising, a confrontation between Metropolitan police and protesters that would live long in the cultural memory. These events formed the backdrop to the fourth