Amazon Prime Video has released the official trailer for “Lovers Rock,” the second film in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology which consists of several films.
Small Axe just premiered with “Mangrove,” which centered on Frank Crichlow (Shaun Parkes), the owner of Notting Hill’s Caribbean restaurant, who along with eight men and women, including Frank and leader of the British Black Panther Movement Altheia Jones-LeCointe (Letitia Wright), and activist Darcus Howe (Malachi Kirby), are wrongly arrested and charged with incitement to riot, a highly publicized trial ensues, leading to hard-fought win for those fighting against discrimination.
Co-written by Courttia Newland and Steve McQueen, ”Lovers Rock,” the next in the film series will air on 11/27 and stars Michael Ward & Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn. Filled with music and dance moves, which will be familiar to any Londoner growing up in the UK in the 80’s, it is set in a house in West London. It tells a fictional story of young love at a Blues party in 1980.
The film is an ode to the romantic reggae genre called “Lovers Rock” and to the Black youth who found freedom and love in its sound in London house parties, when they were unwelcome in white nightclubs. Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn makes her screen debut opposite the BAFTAs 2020 Rising Star award recipient Michael Ward (“Top Boy”). Shaniqua Okwok (“Boys”), Kedar Williams-Stirling (“Sex Education”), Ellis George (“Dr Who”), Alexander James-Blake (“Top Boy”), and Kadeem Ramsay (“Blue Story“) also star, as well as Francis Lovehall and Daniel Francis-Swaby who make their screen debuts.
Small Axe is an anthology series 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.
The title is derived from the African proverb, “If you are the big tree, we are the small axe.”
Check out the trailer for ‘Lover’s Rock’ below:
Samantha Ofole-Prince is an entertainment journalist who covers industry-specific news. Follow her on twitter @SamanthaOfole. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizedeh / Amazon Prime Video
