Director Steve McQueen on his Amazon TV series Small Axe about being Black in Britain: ‘I want every single one of these films to be celebrated’

McQueen’s anthology of films on Amazon Prime called Small Axe are linked by a thread centred on the lives of Britain’s Black immigrant community

‘I wanted my mother to be able to switch on the TV and watch it,’ says McQueen, who insists the films’ impact is not dulled by them being on the small screen

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Michael Ward (left) and Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn in Lovers Rock, part of the Small Axe film series by British director Steve McQueen, available to stream on Amazon Prime. The director insists he’s made a TV series, not a series of films, about the Black experience in Britain. Photo: TNS

Published: 5:15pm, 25 Dec 2020Updated: 5:15pm, 25 Dec 2020

“I’m here to bring change to this organisation from the inside out,” John Boyega says in the new film Red, White and Blue as a young research scientist who switches careers to become a cop, with an eye to combating racism in London’s Metropolitan Police.

Boyega, freed from his obligations to (and frustrations with) the Star Wars franchise, is showing us just how nimble an actor he is, playing a role based on the real life of police officer Leroy Logan and it is so clearly an Oscar-worthy performance, full of nuance and complexity and that wonderful quality of watchability.

But Boyega will not be among the names under consideration for Oscar nominations.

Red, White and Blue is one of five new films on Amazon Prime from British director Steve McQueen, who has released them under the umbrella title Small Axe. There are no crossover characters between the films. You can watch them in any order. Each is a stand-alone story – some feature-length, others a bit shorter.

Red, White and Blue tells the true story of Leroy Logan, played by John Boyega (left), a young forensic scientist with a yearning to do more than his solitary laboratory work.

But instead of each movie vying for awards individually, all five are being submitted as a single group in the limited series TV category. That applies for the upcoming Golden Globes in February and the SAG-AFTRA Awards in March, and eventually the Emmys in September.