Steve McQueen’s Man­grove to open the 64^th BFI Lon­don Film Festival

With the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val set to move online for its 64^th edi­tion due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, it’s a relief to know that won’t stop it from open­ing with a big hitter.

Steve McQueen, Oscar-win­ning direc­tor of 12 Years a Slave and Wid­ows, was set to have quite the year, with his ​‘Year 3’ pho­tog­ra­phy project debut­ing at the Tate Britain and a major ret­ro­spec­tive of his Turn­er Prize-win­ning video art at the Tate Mod­ern. With that on hold, it’s great to see one of his new works, Man­grove, has been select­ed to open LFF.

The film boasts an incred­i­ble cast, includ­ing the 2019 recip­i­ent of the BAF­TA Ris­ing Star Award, Leti­tia Wright, as well as Shaun Parkes and Malachi Kir­by. It’s set to pre­mière for free at the BFI South­bank, which reopens with a new sea­son in Sep­tem­ber, and in cin­e­mas across the UK on Wednes­day 7 October.

It will be fol­lowed by 12 days of excit­ing new films screened in per­son and through an on demand vir­tu­al plat­form which will run through­out the fes­ti­val. The full pro­gramme will be announced on Tues­day 8 Sep­tem­ber through an online launch.

Man­grove is part of an anthol­o­gy dra­ma enti­tled Small Axe, com­mis­sioned by the BBC. The film marks the 50^th anniver­sary of the Man­grove Nine, a group of Black activists who clashed with Lon­don police dur­ing a protest march in 1970.

The tri­al that ensued made his­to­ry as the first judi­cial acknowl­edge­ment of behav­iour moti­vat­ed by racial hatred with­in the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police. Incred­i­bly time­ly and emo­tion­al­ly pow­er­ful, it’s an ear­ly sign that this LFF will be just as excit­ing as ever.

For more info on this year’s LFF head to bfi​.org​.uk/lff