Steve McQueen Discusses ‘IndIvIdual Stories’ Of His BBC Series ‘Small Axe’

Los Angeles: British filmmaker Steven McQueen says he initially set out to make a TV series with “Small Axe” but over the time, each episode of the show became standalone films. “Small Axe” is an anthology series, chronicling five different stories about London’s West Indian community that span the late 1960s to the early 1980s.

During an interview with IndieWire, the “Widows” director said the series mainly details the “Black British experience”. “It started as a TV series. But as I developed it, I came to realise that these stories needed to be standalone films. For me, they became individual stories. “But obviously they’re linked, and the connective tissue is the Black British experience, the Black Indian experience. These are historical pieces that we need to come to light,” McQueen said.