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‘If you are the big tree, we are the small axe’

Made famous by Bob Marley and the Wailers’ 1973 song ‘Small Axe’, that’s the traditional proverb behind the title for a five-film series by Oscar-winning British director Steve McQueen.

Two of McQueen’s Small Axe films were selected for this year’s Cannes Film Festival and in October, one opened the 64th London Film Festival. Now, all five are coming straight to BBC One and iPlayer in the UK, and Amazon Prime Video around the world. The home release has nothing to do with the pandemic; it was always the plan for these feature-length films with a cast including Star Wars’ John Boyega and Black Panther’s Letitia Wright, to air for a mainstream audience on prime time UK television.

11 years in the making, the five films were funded by BBC Studios and made to celebrate key figures in...

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. 17, accompanied by a pre-recorded introduction and Q&a with Almodóvar and Swinton.

Meanwhile, the festival has added “Lovers Rock”to its ‘Love’ strand. It will screen Oct. 18. The film, alongside “Mangrove,” which opens the festival, is one of five films from “Small Axe” — a five-film anthology created by McQueen for BBC One and Amazon Prime Video.

Co-written by Courttia Newland and McQueen, “Lovers Rock” tells the fictional story of young love and music at a house party...

Second of McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ series to play the event.

The BFI London Film Festival has added Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock to the programme which will run from October 7-18).

It forms part of McQueen’s Small Axe anthology series; the festival opens with Mangrove, another film in the series.

Two screenings of Lover’s Rock will play at the BFI Southbank in London as part of the Love strand on the festival’s closing day, Sunday October 18.

The film tells the fictional story of young love and music at a house party in 1980. It stars newcomer Amarah-Jae...

With Lovers Rock, the first part of Steve McQueen’s forthcoming anthology Small Axe, having premiered at the 58th New York Film Festival, many have wondered how to classify this project. Well, the director gave a definitive answer. “These are five features,” McQueen said in his recent NYFF press conference.”In a perfect world, I would love people to see these films in the cinema, absolutely, but we are living in these times [with] TVs and how people can use this equipment in high quality ways. But there is nothing for me that can beat going to the cinema and viewing with a community of people.”

Now, Amazon Studios has solidified his intention by announcing the release plans for the Small Axe features, and rather than all arriving at once as has become the norm in this new age of streaming, they will rollout weekly beginning this November.

Deadline reports that on November 20, Mangrove,...

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. That’s not a bad thing, just noteworthy. The film is showcasing something far different than Oscar potential, and in a year like this one, that’s probably for the best. Still, it’s an interesting choice for the 58th New York Film Festival. For those unaware, here’s a bit about the film from the official festival description: “Lovers Rock tells a fictional story of young love and music at a blues party in the early 1980s. Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn makes her screen debut opposite the BAFTAs 2020 Rising Star award...

After drilling into dreary subjects for five movies, Steve McQueen appears to have discovered joy. The dark personal and social struggles at the center of those earlier projects are right there in their titles, which gives “Lovers Rock” an immediate juxtaposition, and it plays that way, too.

It remains to be seen exactly how this concise tale of West Indian Londoners at an all-night rager fits into the larger context of “Small Axe,” the BBC-produced anthology five feature-length stories about the Black West Indian struggles to which “Lovers Rock” belongs. These may add layers of subtext to “Lovers Rock” beyond its immediate resonance, positioning an intimate drama within the wider fabric of racial tensions. But this swift installment sings its own tune, too — or, rather, it marches to one helluva beat.

Set across a single night in 1980 and loaded with a soundtrack from the eponymous reggae music, “Lovers Rock” is...

In 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. The men, in their natty duds and rasta hats, stand against the wall smoking joints, looking for women to tug by the arm onto the dance floor. Then a hypnotic sound comes on: It’s “Silly Games,” Janet Kay’s delectably lulling reggae-pop anthem, a hit in the U.K. in 1979. With its melting chords and disco flutes and Kay’s voice soaring into an ecstatic high register, the song hits the party like opium.

The dancers nuzzle up to each other, enraptured by the sheer sway of it, moving from slow dancing to slow grooving to slow foreplay. Is that a drop of sweat rolling down the wall? The scene becomes...

Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock will open 58th New York Film Festival Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Film at Lincoln Center announced today that Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock (part of his Small Axe anthology), co-written by Courttia Newland, will be the Opening Night selection of the 58th New York Film Festival. Lovers Rock stars Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, Micheal Ward, Shaniqua Okwok, Kedar Williams-Stirling, Ellis George, Alexander James-Blake, and Kadeem Ramsay with Francis Lovehall and Daniel Francis-Swaby. The film is a fictional account that takes place in London's West Indian community in the early 1980s.

Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock

"In the coming weeks we'll unveil the films our programmers have selected for the 2020 New York Film Festival," said Eugene Hernandez, Director of the New York Film Festival. "For months we've worked to both sustain and refresh NYFF as "a champion of film as art since 1963” and we're honoured that...

Moments ago, the New York Film Festival announced their Opening Night Selection, and it’s not a title you’d expect. Going in a different direction than at least I anticipated, they’ve tapped Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock as the Opener. Part of a five movie collection of McQueen’s called the Small Axe anthology, this is the highest profile of the lot, with the four other films being Mangrove, Alex Wheatle, Education, as well as Red, White and Blue. Consider this a surprise, as well a potential shakeup in the upcoming awards race. Considering how interesting it sounds, count me in, and it’s kind of fun that NYFF didn’t opt for an obvious choice. Read on for more about the flick… Here is some of the press release: Film at Lincoln Center announced today that Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock will be the Opening Night film...

Following his crime thriller Widows, Steve McQueen is returning this year with a project of great ambition and scope. Small Axe, an anthology series from BBC and Amazon Prime Video, is made up of five new feature films, each one directed and co-written by the 12 Years a Slave helmer. While it was revealed that two of the films were originally set to premiere as part of the Cannes Film Festival 2020 lineup, it’s now been announced where they will make their world premieres, along with another film in the anthology.

Film at Lincoln Center’s New York Film Festival has unveiled that one of the films in the anthology, Lovers Rock (pictured below), will be the Opening Night film of the 58th edition, while two others––Mangrove and Red, White and Blue (pictured above)––will premiere in the festival’s Main Slate. Set from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s,...

Film at Lincoln Center has set the Steve McQueen-directed Lovers Rock as the opening-night film of the 58th New York Film Festival. The film will be making its world premiere, and the festival is going heavily into the work of McQueen, who became the first Black filmmaker to win the Best Picture Oscar for 12 Years a Slave.

Lovers Rock is part of his Small Axe anthology, which comprises five original films by the director. Two other films from the anthology, Mangrove and Red, White and Blue, will also have their world premieres as part of the NYFF’s Main Slate, the rest of which will be disclosed in the coming weeks.

This becomes the second straight year in which NYFF chose at its opening nighter a film that will be most widely viewed on a streaming service. Last year, that was the Martin Scorsese-directed The Irishman, though...

Steve McQueen’s “Lovers Rock” will be the opening night film for the 2020 New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center announced Monday.

The 58th edition of NYFF kicks off on September 25 with the latest from the “12 Years a Slave” director. And “Lovers Rock,” which will make its world premiere, is one of five films as part of an anthology from McQueen called “Small Axe.” All five movies, including “Mangrove,” “Lovers Rock,” “Alex Wheatle,” “Education” and “Red, White and Blue,” are set to premiere on BBC One later this year and on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.

Two other films as part of McQueen’s anthology, “Mangrove” and “Red, White and Blue,” will also have their world premieres as part of the festival. The full main slate for the New York Film Festival will be announced in the coming weeks.

Also Read: Toronto Film Festival Lineup to...

The New York Film Festival has announced its opening night film as well as plans for its physical events. The 58th edition of the festival will open with Steve McQueen’s “Lovers Rock,” with the festival also playing home to two other features that comprise McQueen’s ambitious new “Small Axe” series in its main slate. As indicated by festival brass earlier this summer, this year’s NYFF is going to operate differently than it has in previous incarnations. The event will combine a brand-new virtual presence with carefully designed outdoor screenings, including two drive-ins.

McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology is set to premiere on BBC One later this year and air on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. Per the series’ official synopsis, it is “set from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, the films each tell a different story involving London’s West Indian community, whose...

Steve McQueen has been working on his anthology television series “Small Axe” for quite some time (a first look at the ambitious project dropped in September 2019), but new information about the project has emerged in the wake of two installments being included in the Cannes 2020 official selection. The BBC confirms McQueen has conceived each episode of “Small Axe” as its own feature film. The two entries that were selected for Cannes are “Lovers Rock” (a runtime of 1 hour and 8 minutes) and “Mangrove (a runtime of 2 hours and four minutes). The remaining three films are titled “Alex Wheatle,” “Education,” and “Red, White and Blue.”

According to the BBC’s official synopsis, the five films of “Small Axe” tell “personal stories about London’s West Indian community from the late-1960’s to mid-1980’s. The title is derived from an African proverb, which has resonance throughout the Caribbean, ‘if you are the big tree,...