The three documentaries, available now, share similar themes with McQueen’s award-winning anthology series Small Axe
Get ready for some exciting new content on Amazon Prime Video. Three documentaries from award-winning British director Steve McQueen have arrived on the streamer.
Known for award-winning projects like 12 Years A Slave, Widows and Small Axe, McQueen is one of the most acclaimed names in Hollywood.
The docs are described as exploring, “key themes and events depicted in Steve McQueen’s award-winning Small Axe anthology.”
Small Axe, as theGrio previously described, was comprised of five original films “set from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s that tell personal stories from London’s West Indian community, whose lives have been shaped by their own force of will despite rampant racism and discrimination.”
Director Steve McQueen attends the photocall of the movie “Small Axe – Ep. Red White and Blue” at the 15th Rome Film Festival on Oct. 16, 2020 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Stefania M. D’Alessandro/Getty Images for RFF)
Check out the official synopses from the press release below:
Uprising, co-directed by McQueen and James Rogan, “is a vivid and visceral three-part documentary series (comprised of three hour-long episodes) examining three events from 1981 in the UK: The New Cross Fire that killed 13 Black youths and resulted in the Black People’s Day of Action, which saw more than 20,000 people join the first organized mass protest by Black Brits and the Brixton riots.
Uprising will reveal how these three events are intertwined, and how, in the process, race relations were defined for a generation.”
Black Power: A British Story of Resistance, directed by BAFTA-nominated director George Amponsah, “is a searing 90-minute account of the Black Power movement in Britain. The documentary examines how the Black Power movement came into being in the UK in the late 1960s and fought back against police brutality and racism, challenging the British establishment and helping to shape a new political and cultural landscape in the UK.
It features rare archival footage of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael’s activities in Britain, and footage of leading figures in the movement in the UK, including Altheia Jones-LeCointe, Darcus Howe, and Roy Sawh.”
Subnormal: A British Scandal, directed by Lyttanya Shannon, “is an hour-long documentary examining one of the biggest scandals in the history of British education, where Black children in the 1960s and ‘70s were disproportionately sent to schools for the so-called “educationally subnormal.”
It explores the controversial debates on race and intelligence that led to the scandal, the devastating impact it had on the children affected, and illuminates how Black parents, teachers, and activists banded together to expose the injustice and force the British educational system to change.”
All three documentaries are available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video.
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Source: Three new Steve McQueen documentaries debut on Amazon Prime Video
Winnie Harlow attends the PLT x Winnie Harlow Event hosted by PrettyLittleThing on July 14, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images)
Winnie Harlow walks the runway during the Jean-Paul Gaultier Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2020 on Jan. 22, 2020 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)