New York Film Festival 2020: Steve McQueen’s LOVERS ROCK (2020) Chosen As Opening Night Film; Festival Will Utilize Outdoor Screening and Drive-Ins

Two other films from McQueen’s Small Axe Anthology, MANGROVE and RED, WHITE, AND BLUE, will join Lovers Rock in the festival’s Main Slate

Lovers Rock, the first chapter in Steve McQueen’s upcoming Small Axe anthology series, will serve as the opening night film for the 58th New York Film Festival. Two other chapters, Mangrove and Red, White, and Blue, will also play in the festival’s Main Slate.

“These are works of historical drama that speak powerfully and urgently to our present moment of reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism,” praised Dennis Lim, NYFF’s Director of Programming. “They tell stories of outward struggle and inner conflict but also of everyday joy. We can’t wait to share these revelatory films with audiences, and to open the festival with Lovers Rock, a celebration of Black lives as exhilarating as it is liberating.”

Not too much is known about Small Axe yet, which has been in the works for the past few years. It will be comprised of five to six separate chapters, which will be based on the real-life experiences of London’s West Indian community. Each chapter will take place sometime between 1969 and 1982 and show how these Black Britons’ lives “have been shaped by their own force of will despite rampant racism and discrimination”. McQueen directed each of the chapters, and co-wrote them with either Alastair Siddons or Courttia Newland. Small Axe will release on BBC One in the U.K. and on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. later this year.

“It’s an incredible honor and also very humbling to show three of my films at the New York Film Festival,” McQueen said in a statement. “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.”

The Chapters

Lovers Rock in particular is a fictional story set at a blues party in the early 1980s, and follows its protagonists as they surf the throes of young love and music. Co-written by McQueen and Newland, it stars Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, Micheal Ward, Shaniqua Okwok, Kedar Williams-Sterling, Ellis George, Alexander James-Blake, Kadeem Ramsey, Francis Lovehall, and Daniel Francis-Swaby.

Mangrove is an account of the Black activist group Mangrove 9, documenting their clash with London police in 1970 and their subsequent trial. According to NYFF’s press release, the Mangrove 9’s trial was “the first judicial acknowledgment of behavior motivated by racial hatred withing the Metropolitan Police”. Mangrove was co-written by McQueen and Siddons, and stars Letitia Wright, Shaun Parkes, Malachi Kirby, Rochenda Sandall, Jack Lowden, Sam Spruell, Gershwyn Eustache Jr., Nathaniel Martello-White, Richie Campbell, Jumayn Hunter, and Gary Beadle.

Red, White and Blue is based on the story of Leroy Logan (played by John Boyega), who joins the Metropolitan Police after witnessing his father’s assault by two policeman, with the hopes of internally reforming the organization’s racism. Co-written by McQueen and Newland, Red, White and Blue also stars Steve Toussaint, Tyrone Huntley, Nathan Vidal, and Jaden Oshenye.

Lovers Rock and Mangrove were also part of the cancelled 2020 Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection. As Mike Fleming Jr. notes in Deadline, this will be the second year in a row in which NYFF’s opening night film will be a film primarily destined for streaming. (Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman opened last year’s festival.)

The 58th NYFF At-Large

The Small Axe selections join Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland in NYFF’s officially-announced titles. The festival will announce the rest of their film selection and other events in the coming weeks.

NYFF is taking a similar approach to Toronto, wherein the festival will occur as a hybrid of in-person and virtual events. Rather than focusing on the Film Society at Lincoln Center’s two Upper West Side theaters (where a majority of the festival’s screenings take place), NYFF will be spreading out to other boroughs through the utilization of drive-in and outdoor screenings. The festival will partner with Rooftop Films, the New York Hall of Science, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the NYC Economic Development Corporation to host screenings at the Queens Drive-In at Flushing Meadows Corona Park and the Brooklyn Drive-In at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. Indoor screenings will only happen if state health officials deem it possible. (New York state has yet to re-open any entertainment venues, including movie theaters.)

Leave your thoughts on Lovers Rock and other Small Axe chapters playing NYFF, as well as the festival’s hybrid set-up (via Film Society at Lincoln Center and Deadline) this article below and in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more movie news can visit our Movie News Page and our Movie News Twitter Page. Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Flipboard.