"is a film that wants to remind us about the strength and the resilience of the black community and how important it is to keep fighting for justice"

Opening this year’s edition of the London Film Festival and part of the five films collection known as Small Axe, inspired by true events, Mangrove is McQueen's revolutionary response to 2020 racial injustice.

The Small Axe collection will be released in November on Amazon Prime, However Mangrove is taking the spotlight during this year’s London Film Festival by highlighting the history of racial oppression in London.

Whoever argues that racism only exist in America, will have to eat their words after watching Mangrove. The film focuses on the Mangrove nine, who stood trial against the London Police in the 70’s.

For those who don’t know the story, the Mangrove was a popular Caribbean restaurant located in Notting Hill. Since its opening in 1968, Mangrove became a cultural and communal gathering place for many people of colour and white activists. For this reason the restaurant, its owner Frank Crichlow and other frequent customers and political black activists, became the target of the London Police.

During the first half of 1969, the restaurant was raided multiple times without any apparent legal reason. After a peaceful protest turned violent, Frank Crichlow, along with Altheia Jones-LeCointe and Darcus Howe among many others, had to stand trial for conspiracy to incite a riot.

This is know in history as the first judicial acknowledgment of behaviour motivated by racial hatred within the Metropolitan Police.

After the tragic events still occurring in America, Mangrove, and the Small Axe project as a whole, is a celebration of the resilience of black people against a justice system that has always been rigged in favour of white supremacy.

What sets this movie apart from everything else is the fact that Steve McQueen always seems to take the high road; every scene highlights the reality with objective eyes. The audience witnesses how the Police is targeting a family run establishments because it is recognised as a safe place for black people to gather as a community and feel that sense of home and belonging even in a foreign country.

McQueen’s directing style always balances out violent scenes with moments focused on little details, allowing the audience to digest what is happening in the story without undermining the reality lived by the protagonists.

As a director, he choses to show the consequences of Police brutality, rather than the act itself. Viewers don’t see a man beaten to a pulp, but they have a good look at his face after it happens. However, that doesn’t mean that the story shies away from the unjust reality of black oppression. On the contrary, it adds poignancy to the film and pushes the audience to reflect and really understand what it means to be harassed for the colour of your skin.

Of course there couldn’t be a great movie without a cast ensemble strong enough to portray on camera real people and their struggle to find justice in a system that doesn’t even consider them second class humans. Letitia Wright, Malachi Kirby, Rochenda Sandall and Shaun Parkes carry the film on their shoulders. As actors they channel their own anger towards modern society to fuel their performance and bring to the screen strong real life characters who had to fight for their rights and freedom.

One would wish to argue that today society made huge leaps against systemic racism, however, the events told by Mangrove are still too comparable with what is happening in our modern reality today. Since the 70’s too little has changed and the fight for universal equality is still ongoing.

However, Mangrove is a film that wants to remind us about the strength and the resilience of the black community and how important it is to keep fighting for justice even when all odds are stacked against you.