

Steve McQueen made five separate films about Caribbean immigrants in London, and each one drops you into a different world: a courtroom trial, a sensual house party, a Black police officer, a writer in prison, a racist school. As Bob Marley sang, the small axe can cut down the big tree.
Set in London between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, the five films begin with nine people who stand trial after protesting against police raids on a Notting Hill restaurant. A young man joins the police to change it from within, a bright boy is sent to a school for children with learning difficulties, and the future writer Alex Wheatle comes of age and takes part in the Brixton riots. The fifth film is a single night at a house party, where the reggae sets everyone free.
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