Page 131 - Small Axe News Today

In the first two episodes of Steve McQueen’s quintet of films, collectively titled Small Axe, the artist and film-maker points his lens at two distinct but related spaces of Black social pleasure: a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill in the late 1960s, and a house party in the same area a decade later. Both of these are, to varying degrees, embattled, from without and within. The first film , Mangrove, takes its title from the historic Mangrove Restaurant, established on All Saints Road in...

We talk to two veteran directors. Listen via Empire.

BBC News Published image captionLovers Rock stars Michael Ward and Amarah-Jae St Aubyn Director Sir Steve McQueen has said "things are changing" for black British filmmakers, after Lovers Rock was named film of the year by the BFI-backed publication Sight & Sound. The second in Sir Steves five-film Small Axe TV series topped the magazines poll of the best 2020 releases, ahead of Time, and First Cow. His collection celebrates British black culture and its Caribbean heritage. He said "the environ...

Social Bringing Black British history to the classroom, BBC Teach releases an educational series based on Steve McQueen’s Small Axe Based on the miniseries created by the Oscar-winning British filmmaker, BBC Creative has released a set of five films aiming to change the ways in which Black history is taught in schools. Words Now has never been a better time to educate yourself on the history of our country, especially when it comes to Black history. Doing just that is a new series of five edu...

Photo: Will Robson-Scott/Amazon Studios Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Friday, December 11, and Saturday, December 12. All times are Eastern.  Advertisement Top picks Small Axe: Alex Wheatle (Amazon, Friday, 3:01 a.m.): “A short coming-of-age film that works well within the Small Axe saga, Alex Wheatle has a richness comparable to any long, drawn-out biopic that’s come from Hollywood of late, thanks to the nuances McQueen layers into the story. The audience wa...

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“A Star Is Born” might have been a better title for the final chapter of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, not least because it opens with 12-year-old Kingsley (newcomer Kenyah Sandy) watching the start of the universe in a planetarium, but because it chronicles the turning point in McQueen’s own journey to genius – a heartfelt, deeply personal coming-of-age story about his own childhood struggles. “A nuclear heart is beginning to beat”, announces the show in a line loaded wit...

In the month since it premiered, Steve McQueen’s Small Axe has proven to be a landmark of long-form cinematic storytelling. The limited series, comprising five feature-length films, each taking a different approach to the decades of racism faced by London’s Black West Indian population, is an astounding achievement regardless of the rubric you apply to it. Naturally, that hasn’t stopped critics and cinephiles from hand-wringing over whether it qualifies as cinema or television. Advertise...

She paid tribute to Ian, who died in 2019 after a lifetime fighting civil rights causes, and Althea who now lives in the Caribbean.  "His death was a great loss," she said. "He was in and out of our centre, we always wanted his advice on something! Ian was always forthcoming, always available. He was a truly antiracist person, and to have that in a lawyer, in a barrister is really great." "And Althea, when you start to listen to her you dont want to stop. Shes that kind of compelling speake...

BBC Outlines Plans to Accelerate Diverse Representation on and off Screen BBC, December 3, 2020 The work builds on the Creative Diversity Commitments made earlier in the year, and will be supported by the Creative Diversity Unit, under June Sarpong, the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity. Among the plans, which will feature in a wide ranging report published next week, the BBC is announcing: A new Disability Content Panel made up of creatives with a lived experience of disability from...