Ever since its announcement as part of this year’s Cannes Film Festival Official Selections, Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology series from Amazon has been positioned as one of the 2020 fall festival darlings. And it appears that is playing out at this year’s New York Film Festival, which will not only debut a feature-length episode of the anthology as its Opening Night film but will also showcase two additional episodes as part of the main slate.
According to NYFF, McQueen’s “Lover’s Rock” will be the Opening Night film at this year’s event, which is set to begin at the end of September. In addition to “Lover’s Rock” being shown at NYFF, McQueen will also showcase two more episodes of “Small Axe,” “Mangrove” and “Red, White and Blue.” These three features will all be featured among the five films in the upcoming Amazon anthology from the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
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“It’s an incredible honor and also very humbling to show three of my films at the New York Film Festival. It’s especially meaningful for me at this particular time to share these stories as a Black man of West Indian heritage. I’m grateful to the NYFF for their generosity and wish everyone a safe and healthy festival,” said McQueen.
Eugene Hernandez, Director of the New York Film Festival, added, “In the coming weeks we’ll unveil the films our programmers have selected for the 2020 New York Film Festival. For months we’ve worked to both sustain and refresh NYFF — a champion of film as art since 1963 — and we’re honored that filmmaker Steve McQueen accepted our invitation to open the 58th New York Film Festival in an unprecedented manner, with one of three remarkable new films he’ll unveil at NYFF.”
As we’ve discussed before, “Small Axe” isn’t your typical TV anthology, which is why it makes such an interesting festival project. Instead of your run-of-the-mill Peak TV anthology series, where episodes are roughly an hour (or less), McQueen’s upcoming Amazon series consists of five narratively-separate episodes that each are feature-length. This allows for individual installments to play as separate feature films at festivals, while also forming a sort of cohesive unit when viewed together.
“Small Axe” is a series of five stories that shed light on the trials and tribulations of the West Indian community of London during the ‘60s, ‘70s,’ and ‘80s. “Lovers Rock,” for example, tells the story of young love and music at a blues party in the early 1980s. Whereas “Red, White and Blue” is a feature-length episode that follows a West Indian man in London that joins the police force after witnessing his father being assaulted by officers. Each episode shows a different side of the West Indian community’s struggles for decades, which is something McQueen is personally familiar with.
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Clearly, with the festival love that “Small Axe” is already receiving, the series is a big part of Amazon’s upcoming slate, which is reiterated by Jen Salke, the Head of Amazon Studios.
“We are proud to have Steve in our Amazon family and to be able to provide a home for his groundbreaking and relevant anthology of films, ‘Small Axe,’” she explained. “It’s an incredible gift for us to bring such a powerful project to Prime Video. ‘Lovers Rock,’ ‘Mangrove,’ and ‘Red, White and Blue’ shine a bright and urgent light on the courageous heroes who have stood up to fight against systemic racism; their stories are both specific and universal in their quest for equality and peace. It’s the highest honor for all of us to have three of Steve’s works be selected to both open and present at this year’s New York Film Festival.”
This year’s New York Film Festival is scheduled to begin on September 25.
