BBC starts Uprising with Steve McQueen
UK pubcaster BBC1 has ordered a factual series examining three significant events involving black British people in 1981, with Small Axe and 12 Years a Slave filmmaker Steve McQueen directing.
Steve McQueen
(photo: Melony McGant)
Uprising (3×60’) series examines the New Cross Fire in January 1981, which killed 13 black teenagers; the Black People’s Day of Action in March, when more than 20,000 people joined the first organised mass protest by black British people; and the Brixton riots in April.
With James Rogan (Stephen: The Murder that Changed a Nation) also directing, Uprising will reveal how these three events intertwined and how, in the process, race relations were defined for a generation.
Steve McQueen announces Small Axe follow-up with three-part Uprising
Small Axe series, Sir Steve McQueen has announced that a new 3-part drama series titled
Uprising will air on BBC One later this year.
The BBC announced that the “vivid and visceral” trilogy will cover the New Cross House Fire of 1981, as well as the resulting Black People’s Day of Action, followed by the Brixton Riots from that same year.
Sir Steve told the broadcaster that the London house fire and subsequent fallout were “momentous events in our nation’s history” and that
Uprising would be made using “testimonials from the survivors, investigators, activists and representatives of the machinery of state”.