A coda to Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, George Amponsah’s documentary is a masterly history of a multifaceted and complex movement for racial equality
Steve McQueen’s film series Small Axe grew out of a desire to tell Britain’s stories of black resistance. So, too, does this complementary documentary (BBC Two), executive produced by McQueen, narrated by Daniel Kaluuya and directed by George Amponsah, whose credits include the 2015 feature documentary The Hard Stop, about the aftermath of Mark Duggan’s death at the hands of the Metropolitan police.
These means are necessary – to borrow a phrase – because so many stories remain overlooked and untold. Narrative cinema has a unique power but, as conversations surrounding the Oscar-nominated Judas and the Black Messiah and The Trial of the Chicago 7 have demonstrated, Hollywood’s requirement that movies be palatable to a wide audience can trump historical accuracy, sometimes in troubling ways.
